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SUMMER REST 



BY 



GAIL HAMILTON, 

AUTHOR OF "country LIVING AND COUNTRY THINKING 
"a new ATMOSPHERE," *' GALA-DAYS," 
ETC., ETC. 







BOSTON: 

TICKNOR AND FIELDS 

1866. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 

TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
Cambridge. 



V 



CONTENTS. 

—4 

Page 
Orchard Talk 3 

A Prose Henriade .34 

Larva Lessons 62 

Fancy Farming 100 

A Council about a Council . . . . . 130 

Gilfillan's Sabbath 153 

The Kingdom Coming 219 

King James the First 255 

Well Done 310 




SUMMER REST 




ORCHARD TALK 




T is charged that Americans have no 
repose. We are consumed with en- 
ergy, and in our eagerness to do have 
largely lost the power to enjoy. There 
is some ground for the remark ; but possibly we 
have in our character the elements of repose, 
though our circumstances have not yet contrib- 
uted to, or even been tolerant of, its development. 
Certain it is that there can be no true repose save 
in connection with right action. Absolute quie- 
tude we cannot command, but absolute quietude 
is not indispensable. A boundless activity may 
carry along with it all the conditions of perfect 
rest. 

We speak of the quiet of the country, and truly 
our souls find solace there and peace. But the 
country seems to be the place of all places where 
everything is going on. Especially in spring one 
becomes almost distracted. What is spring in the 
city ? Dead bricks under your feet ; dead stones 
all around you. There are beautiful things in the 



4 ' SUMMER REST, 

shop windows, but they never do anything. It 
is just the same as it was yesterday and as it will 
be to-morrow. I suppose a faint sense of warmth 
and fragrance does settle down into the city's old 
cold heart, and at a few breathing-holes — little 
irregular patches as we see them, lovely but mi- 
nute, called ''Central Park" or "Boston Com- 
mon" — Nature comes up to blow. And there 
are the spring bonnets. Still, as a general thing, 
it can hardly make much difference whether it be 
June or January. 

But Spring in the country, — O season rightly 
named ! — a goddess-queen glides through the 
heavens, and the earth and all that is therein 
springs up to meet her and do obeisance. We, 
gross and heavy, blind and deaf, are slow to catch 
the flutter' of her robes, the music of her footfall, 
the odor of her breath, the brightness of her far- 
off coming. We call it cold and winter still. We 
huddle about the fires and wonder if the spring 
will never come ; and all the while, lo, the spring 
is here ! Ten thousand watching eyes, ten thou- 
sand waiting ears, laid along the ground, have 
signalled the royal approach. Ten thousand times 
ten thousand voices sound the notes of preparation. 
Every tiny sleeping germ of animal and of vege- 
table life springs to its feet, wide awake, girded for 
duty, vigilant but unhurried, eager, active, and 
most orderly. Now you must be wide awake too, 
or you will miss the sights. 



ORCHARD TALK. 5 

And each spring is more lovely than the last. 
Tenderer green on the earth, intenser blue in 
the sky, deeper colors, sweeter voices, busier feet, 
happier hearts, as the Summer comes softly singing 
through the meadows and pouring her fragrance 
on the air. Every year it floats into my thought, 
" I will write something beautiful about the sum- 
mer," from pure longing to celebrate its loveliness 
in gratitude for its behests ; but I never write the 
beautiful thing, no, nor ever shall. For the sum- 
mer absorbs you unawares. The birds and the 
bees and the buds are so busy ; the lambs in the 
fields, the fishes in the brooks, the cattle on a 
thousand hills, — with them is no delay nor excus- 
ing. And while you are living all these dear 
dumb lives, gradually the clouds grow leaden, the 
wind whistles, the leaves shiver and shrivel and 
fall, and of a sudden you look up to find that the 
summer is gone. Now, therefore, fair goddess, 
take, I pray, my speechless enjoyment for meet 
celebration, and count me no ingrate because I 
cannot say the thing I would. 

But as yet the summer is here, warm and sun- 
ny and scented, pouring through the windows and 
filling house and heart with newness of life ; sink- 
ing into the brown earth, subtile and sinuous, to 
rise again in vivid hues and graceful forms. And 
the birds are here. They came up early from 
the summer-land, — bluebirds and robins and all 
manner of winged wonders, familiar and strange, 



6 SUMMER REST, 

driven northward, so the country folk say, by the 
long roar and smoke and horror of battle. We 
have a line of old apple-trees on the south bor- 
der, marvellously gnarled and unsightly, curiously 
crooked as one might say, a fat feeding-ground for 
worms and caterpillars, bearing little fruit, and that 
untoothsome. A really thrifty and sensible axe 
would speedily lay itself at their roots ; but such 
is none of ours, and they shall not down. For 
every spring the faithful old patriarchs go through 
all the forms of fruitage as dutifully as if they 
meant to fill our bins with Baldwins. Some se- 
cret influence, which our hard humanity cannot 
discern, but which the vegetable world knows and 
answers joyfully, floats through the night, a low 
voice stirs the heart beneath their wrinkled boles, 
the old sap asserts itself, old ambitions revive, and 
with the dewy dawn, lo ! the apple-trees have 
thrilled into bloom. What if strength fails them 
to redeem their promise in some distant, doubtful 
October ? At least the whole air is a sea of per- 
fume now, and the waves come rolling in at all 
the windows, flooding us with fragrance. You 
hardly move but some fresh delicate odor smites 
you softly, waking a new delight. What ravaging 
axe shall destroy these fountains of incense ? 

And the old trees, misshapen, uncouth, and well 
stricken in years, are fireside and forum, temple 
and theatre, for a community of birds. Little they 
care for grim bark, or twisted branch, or pre- 



ORCHARD TALK. 7 

empted twig. The more bugs the better hunting- 
ground. Every insect haunt is a well-stocked 
Faneuil Market ready to hand. In every worm 
they see a new pinfeather, a sharpening claw, a 
hardening beak, for some callow darling. I watch 
them hopping about on the grass in little fits and 
starts, alighting on the fence and musing there 
with an air of intense preoccupation, flying up 
into the trees to some hidden nook among the 
leafage with a wisp of straw for building, — and I 
could find it in my heart to pity them. It seems 
such an endless task to make a nest, straw by 
by straw, painfully, with only one little bill for 
all sorts of work. But they seem to like it. 
Labor is lightened and time shortened perhaps 
with thinking of the chosen friend who is to share 
it and the tiny brood that is to be sheltered in it. 
And they never work hard. It is not dig, dig, 
dig with the birds. They take life daintily, lords 
and ladies in their own right. Toil is diversified 
by game and song and social chit-chat. They 
will leave their labor for no cause apparently, 
but just on the spur of the moment, whirl you 
a wild waltz through the air in a very passion 
of pastime, then stand a-tilt on a twig and trill 
out for a second or two a reckless roundelay as 
if the whole world of the May-time were pouring 
its joy through their throats, and anon the min- 
strel is down among the grasses again, no longer 
a gay Lothario, a Ralph Roister Doister, but a 



8 SUMMER REST, 

quiet, grave family bird, busily engaged in gather- 
ing materials and building himself a local habita- 
tion. And what heavenly habitations are theirs ! 
Think of living in a great green overlapping forest, 
green above, around, beneath you, endless aisles 
losing themselves in endless arches, the bright 
sky glimmering far off, the bright sun shining in 
through a thousand portals and leaving soft waver- 
ing shadows everywhere, gentle gales whispering 
melodies and murmuring sweet lullabys, or some- 
times a brave breeze trumpeting some martial 
air that rouses all the fire in your blood ; to be 
surrounded for days and weeks with great pink 
and white blossoms bigger than your head, deeps 
•.overhead and deeps underfoot, drooping and swing- 
ing all through the silent night and the sultry 
noon and dawn and twilight between ; and every 
crystal cup brimmed and overflowing with pungent 
delicious odors, — no wonder the birds are drunken 
with delight and pour forth such mad bacchanal 
songs as stagger their little frames and set the 
whole orchard a-tremble ! 

If they only would be tame, — the shy, nervous 
sprites ! — if they only could discern friend from 
foe, and let you who love them so draw near to 
share their pretty secrets ! But tame they will not 
be. Sometimes, in venturesome mood, or thinking 
perhaps to take a short cut across lots, they dart 
through an open window and shoot about the 
room quite bewildered. But if you catch the 




ORCHARD TALK. 9 

wanderer, his poor heart throbs so pitifully, and 
there is such a still, wild terror in his eyes, that you 
give up trying to make him count you his friend, 
and bid him back again to tell his open-eared com- 
rades the story of his feather-breadth escape from 
some savage monster, — you. One little swallow 
slid down somehow between the panes of a window 
opened from the top and almost beat himself to 
death in trying to get out. His flattened body, 
spread wings, and panting struggles were sad to 
see. We hardly dared move the window lest the 
sash might give him a fatal injury. We worked 
over him as carefully as possible full fifteen min- 
utes, and freed him at last, but '' Dead, quite dead, 
poor little thing!" I said, stroking his ruffled 
feathers as he lay upon my open hand ; whereupon 
he winked his black imp's eye at me, and shot off* 
and out of sight in a second, — the little thankless 
rogue ! Then there is a gray sparrow that has built 
her nest in the woodbine and a ground sparrow 
has " squatted " at the edge of the cornfield; but 
no sooner do you approach than out flutters the 
one from her quiet bower and up shoots the other 
from her snug ambush, flying for dear life, as if 
you could meditate the smallest mischief to their 
homely, tiny selves, or their tiny speckled eggs. 
Birds, I was thinking one morning, must be or 
ought to be thoroughly happy. They have all the 
conditions of bliss, these orchard birds, enough 
to eat, stout trees for shelter, everything that the 
1* 



10 SUMMER REST. 

ornitliological heart can dream. No bird of prey, 
no gun nor snare ever comes nigh them. They 
are a dehght to eye and ear. Paradise is here. 
Every one is their friend. In the wide universe 
they have no foe. And while the thoughts were 
yet w^arm within me, up the porch-steps trotted 
Rory the cat, with fierce eyes ghttering and a 
dead bird hanging from her jaws. And the very 
next day another, and not long after a third ; and 
many and many a time since have I seen her crouch- 
ing and watching, her bones all astir with eager- 
ness, or stealthily creeping on behind an unwary 
thrush or clawing up into the trees in hot pursuit. 
Too often a little heap of blood-bedabbled feath- 
ers attests her fell success. You can chase her 
away, but to no moral effect. She takes the 
chasing for a frolic, and only capers about like a 
mad creature, scudding atop of the fences, couch- 
ing on the posts, leaping on the shed-roof and 
mounting to the ridge-pole of the barn. But 
Paradise has not yet come, even for the birds. 
I find they have enemies and are often sore bested. 
They are like a young author. He flits jauntily 
into the sunshine and song of the world, pouring 
forth his ow^n note gayly, never suspecting but he 
w^ill be as gladly welcomed as he gladly goes. 
But no sooner is his strain fairly afloat on the air 
than out springs a surly critic from every corner 
and rends him in pieces remorselessly. 

I said so to my friend Halicarnassus, one morn- 



ORCHARD TALK, 11 

ing as we were sitting on the threshold of the 
back barn-door that opens into the orchard, to 
which he replied : " Your simile is very touching ; 
but as a sober fact, your young author is not always 
so innocent and unsophisticated as you represent 
him. If, instead of pouring his melody on the 
charmed air he makes his dehut with a sharp stick, 
poking it into everybody's pet prejudice, stirring 
up all the settled customs, and thrusting in pell- 
mell among the creeds, he may reckon on being 
poked back again. You cannot expect the world, 
the flesh, and the Devil to sit still and be quietly 
abolished. If you want smooth sailing, you must 
not sail in the teeth of the wind." 

L I do not want smooth sailing ; and as you 
and I have never fallen in with literary persons, 
and must depend entirely upon conjecture in these 
matters, let me recommend that, in order to avoid 
the appearance of personality, you substitute " one " 
for " you." But it is not true, that if you sail with 
the wind you will always secure smooth sailing. 
There are many authors who have no sharp stick, 
who deal only in feathers and honey, and are yet 
harshly entreated. 

H. Stupidity is the unpardonable sin in litera- 
ture. 

L No : stupidity that is not aggressive might 
be let alone. There is no harm done when a dull 
book is published. Why harry the author ? 

H. It becomes my painful duty to contradict 



12 SUMMER REST. 

you, and say that there is often much harm done. 
A great part of our rehgious bigotry, for instance, 
is the direct handiwork of men whose position 
requires them to think, and the shape and contents 
of whose skulls incapacitate them for thinking. 
Their only fault is, that they take the place of 
leaders when they ought to be followers. Having 
no capital of their own they borrow, and not 
being able to grasp large ideas, they possess them- 
selves of narrowness, and prejudice, and tradition, 
which they deliver over to the masses as gospel. 
The latter take their religion on trust. Their tastes 
do not incline them, or their education does not 
enable them, or their occupations do not permit 
them, to investigate for themselves. All the more 
important is it that what is given them should be 
the truth. But it is not truth, or it is only partial 
truth, whose effect is falsehood. So mischief is 
wrought, generation after generation, till the heart 
of the Christian community seems to be so en- 
crusted with intellectual error — let alone its in- 
nate weakness or wickedness — as to be wellnigh 
impregnable. I question sometimes whether it 
would not be well to have church organizations 
broken up, church buildings torn down, and the 
whole religious world fused into one homogeneous 
mass, to see if it cannot crystallize anew into some- 
thing better than w^e have now. 

L I am afraid you would have less fusion than 
confusion. 



ORCHARD TALK, 13 

H, Chaos was the mother of the world. 

L But God was its Father, and I suspect the 
Church people generally would think it was quite 
another being who was to be the father of your 
new order of things. 

J5". Well, if you will undertake to undo the 
wrong that has been done by pious dulness, I will 
very readily engage to dispose of the evil wrought 
by brilliant wickedness, and we will let things 
stand awhile longer. 

I. I suppose it is the former that fructifies the 
seed of the latter. Still I think you are too hard 
on the stupid ones. As long as the world lasts, 
there will be bright people who are not good and 
good people who are not bright; and I for one 
am not prepared to give the palm to the former. 

H. Nor I. It is only when the blind set up 
to lead the blind that I object, and for the sole 
reason that they lead us all into the ditch. 

Z But I was not thinking so much, after all, 
of religious or moral as of merely literary writing. 
There are the daughters of Tupper, for instance, 
who have printed some verses, — very good, I dare 
say. 

H, Very moral, I dare swear. 

I, Yet some of the newspapers have been load- 
ing them down with sarcasm as assiduously as if 
their book was going to be fatal to the British 
supremacy if it were not speedily suppressed. To 
what purpose? They have a clear right to pub- 
lish verses, as well as Milton and Shakespeare. 



14 SUMMER REST. 

H. And I have a clear right to publish my 
opinion that they are spooney. 

L Not necessarily. Why should you not be 
polite with your pen as well as with your tongue ? 
If Miss Tupper should pay you a morning visit, 
you would think it very discourteous to ridicule 
her, though her conversation were ever so foolish. 
Why shall ninety-nine persons be permitted to 
talk nonsense all their lives while the hundredth 
cannot print the nonsense of an hour or two with- 
out being publicly executed ? 

H. The talk dies with the moment, but the 
printed folly puts in a claim for immortality, which 
we vociferously deny. 

L But it would soon sink of its own weight, if 
you would let it alone. 

H, Not always. It often happens that some 
incidental interest of subject, of time, or of puffing 
gives a book a circulation and reputation which 
its merits would not secure : it acquires there- 
by a power to injure the morals, the taste, and 
the good name of the community ; and such books 
ought to be picked off by the sharpshooters in the 
interests of virtue. 

I. But the Misses Tupper's poetry would do 
nothing of the sort. It would neither go far 
enough nor deep enough. I dare say it has no 
positive faults — 

H. Only wants body. 

L If you mean by '^ body " — 



ORCHARD TALK. 15 

H. Soul. 

/. At any rate, it has no mischief-working quali- 
ties. It is doubtless good common poetry. But 
there is a notion that real criticism consists in 
cutting and slashing. Yet as much stupidity may 
be shown in censure as in praise, besides all the 
ill-nature. To find fault is not necessarily to be 
wise. Criticisms that are meant to be sharp are 
sometimes only savage. They have what Dr. New- 
man would call " the provincial note." I think 
the good-natured, indiscriminate puffs are much 
better than the ill-natured, indiscriminate growls 
with which some have attempted to supplant them. 

H. Better of the two. But there is something 
better than either. 

L Of course. Wisdom to discern between the 
evil and the good, and leisure and patience to 
point out both. But if you cannot command this, 
why then give me shallowness that is amiable 
rather than shallowness that is cross. I would 
establish it as an indispensable rule, that criticism 
to be severe needs to be skilful. Let us have 
the scymitar of Saladin, but no hewing and hack- 
ing of a rusty Toledo trusty in the hands of a 
Hudibras. 

H, The author has always this to fall back 
on, — that the public is a perfectly upright court 
of appeal. It is a fair fight between him and liis 
critic ; and magna est Veritas and will prevail a bit, 
generally, as we used to say in college. 



16 SUMMER REST, 

L Not always, for the writer deals only with 
his subject, while the critic deals with both writer 
and subject, and therefore occupies a superior po- 
sition in the eyes of the people ; but where the 
writer does prevail over the critic, it is all the 
more signal a victory. I remember, for instance, 
reading some depreciating remarks on " Azarian" 
in the North American Review. At the time they 
seemed to have force, to be indeed final. But 
I read '' Azarian " again from mere curiosity, and 
found its locks entirely unshorn. It had not lost a 
single charm, — which is a far stronger proof of 
merit than any first reading could give ; but most 
people will not take the trouble to re-read. They 
accept the critic's judgment. 

S. I recollect that paper. It was unjust not 
so much in what it said as in what it failed to say. 
The book has faults in the direction there indicated, 
only it has merits not there indicated. 

I. And merits so great that not to indicate them 
is to give a false presentation of the book. Noth- 
ing can be more unjust than to expend all one's 
ingenuity and energy on a few surface faults, and 
entirely pass over the great strength, the solid sub- 
stance of a book. 

H. One cannot include everything, even in a 
review article. 

/. No ; but therefore one should not assume to 
have done everything. If a critic has time or 
space for only the defects of a book, very well ; 



ORCHARD TALK. 17 

but let liim state the fact, and make it clear to 
his reader, that there are merits, and that they 
stand in such and such relation to the faults. 
Now " Azarian " has somewhat fine and powerful, 
something different from and superior to anything 
else that Miss Prescott has written, which not to 
see is to be blind. Why, it is as if Undine had 
found her soul. 

H. That is true ; and if Miss Prescott goes on 
working the vein she opened there, and — I 
have the material for a magnificent metaphor in 
my head. You might set up in trade for yourself 
if you could only get at it. 

L And works up the gold she digs out into the 
beautiful shapes that dazzle and delight us even 
when the material is soap-suds and the product 
soap-bubbles, — that is what you mean ? 

H, Something like that, but far finer. 

I, There is this, however, that when vou attack 
a writer of established position like Miss Prescott 
you take your life in your hands, but you may 
throw as many sticks and stones at the little 
Tuppers as you like. Their father makes them 
a lawful target. But it is very silly and very 
cowardly to attack Mr. Tupper. In fact he has 
been so much abused that I begin to suspect he 
is a far greater man than we have been imagining. 

a. Certainly. Contemporary opinion does not 
go for much. Milton's Paradise Lost, and so 
forth. Seven Grecian Cities, and so forth. 

B 



18 SUMMER REST, 

L Then spare your shafts. Don't force inno- 
cent people to suffer the pain of seeing themselves 
and their verses mocked at in the morning paper. 

H, O, if it comes to that, it is not so bad as you 
think. Everybody has his little clique of ad- 
mirers, who stand between him and the scorching 
fire of criticism, just as a drop of water is sheltered 
by its own steam from the heat of the stove it is 
dancing round upon. Providence has blessed us all 
with an inexhaustible fertility of devices to ward 
off attacks upon our self-love. We can attribute 
censure to pique or anything but truth, and so 
take heart again. 

I. Yes, and that reminds me of something else. 
You know Robertson's Life and Letters ? 

H, I don't know anything else, speaking after 
the manner of men. Every periodical for the last 
three months has blossomed and borne Robertson. 
Doubtless he was a brick, so to say, but one may 
have too much of a good thing. And the quarter- 
lies have not had their turn at him yet. 

L It only shows that when we have a hero we 
make the most of him, which is much better than 
to let him die and (we) give no sign. But I was 
going to say that I do not understand how with 
his unquestioned bravery, strength, and grandeur, 
and all his clearness of perception, he could have 
suffered so much from opposition and misrepre- 
sentation, or even loneliness. All these things 
were but the natural consequence of his own out- 



ORCHARD TALK. 19 

spoken words, and to be expected. No misfortune 
happened unto him but such as is common unto 
men who battle with popular error, and the more 
fiercely they give battle, the more clamorous will 
be the outcry of their foes. But to be moved in 
one's life by it seems to me unreasonable. One 
should count the cost before going to war, and if 
he cannot stand the strain, let him not draw the 
sword. Robertson's purpose, we must suppose, 
was to promulgate truth, to promote righteous- 
ness. All the malignity he awakened was but 
the dust of the conflict, — not agreeable, but surely 
not unprecedented : the smoke and vapor of the 
valley to him who stands on the mountain-tops. 
They are to be cleared away because they hide 
the sun from the lowlands ; but they have no 
power to touch the hidden springs of happiness 
in his heart who dwells in the eternal sunshine. 
Truth is so beautiful, so satisfying. 

H, Sympathy and approbation and one's fellow- 
men, and especially women, are very pleasant too. 

L But not indispensable, while there are things 
which you do from an irresistible impulse. You 
speak not because you so decide, but a voice utters 
itself through your lips. If there is a foe in your 
own heart crying amen to the charges without, 
you may have misgivings ; but when you are sure, 
hatred and love are one to you. It is not only a 
better but a happier thing to stand alone clear- 
eyed, than to consort with the mob blindly groping. 



20 SUMMER REST, 

Their outcry is only obstruction to be surmounted. 
It has nothing to do with your hfe. To receive 
the secret of the Lord, to bear the sacred trust, 
what blessing in all the world can be compared 
to this ? Talk of sympathy ! "Why, you don't 
expect sympathy in those whose Dagon you are 
felling. If they sympathized with you, you w^ould 
not be talking at all. 

H. It strikes me that is just my case. 

I. But is n't it so ? 

S, O yes. I always suspected you would 
march to the stake and rather like it, if you 
could but go alone. 

L Never. And I am thankful to live in the 
days when opposition, at its very worst, takes the 
shape of paragraphs, and sneers, and coarse per- 
sonalities, rather than of wheel and thumb-screw 
and fagot. No ; I fear I should recant everything 
rather than be burnt wdth green wood. I should 
confess that the existing order of things is not 
only the best that has yet existed, but the best 
that can be dreamed of ; that tyranny and sensu- 
ality and bigotry and selfishness are pure and 
sacred, to object to which is immorality and athe- 
ism and sour grapes. But I don't know any 
power at the present day that could make me 
admit this. As for calling the little desagremens 
resulting from modern disapprobation trouble, it 
is for a healthy person simply absurd ; while, re- 
garding loneliness, he that is accompanied by the 



ORCHARD TALK. 21 

truth seems to me exceeding well companioned. 
Nay, I would think it better to catch a glimpse 
of her garments far off, to follow her, and woo 
and win her to rectify and sweeten the common 
life that is so bitter and wrong, than sit at ease 
in the smiles of the wrong-doing multitude. 

H, "In vain the human heart we mock, 

Bring living guests who love the day, 
Nor ghosts who fly at crow of cock. 
The herbs we share with flesh and blood 
Are better than ambrosial food. 
With laurelled shades." 

I. I grant it nothing loath ; but doubly blessed 
was Robertson, who could partake of both. Are 
not husband and wife company ? 

H. That depends — 

L Depends on what ? 

a. Times and seasons. Some men's wives are 
mere housekeepers, and housekeepers are good 
company when you are cold and hungry; and 
others are playthings, and playthings are good 
company when you wish only to be amused : and 
some women's husbands are watch-dogs, which 
are the best of company when you are afraid of 
robbers. The fact is, only a few of us are per- 
fect, and most of our domestic relations savor of 
the earth if not of sulphur. 

L But our domestic relations are no more sul- 
phurous than our social relations, — though I don't 
see what the end of your answer has to do with 



22 SUMMER REST. 

the beginning. A man and his wife are no more 
imperfect than a man and his friend. But you 
don't dismiss friendship from the realms of fact 
with the cavaher remark that we all savor of 
sulphur. If a man can find sympathy and solace 
in any human being, he surely ought to find it in 
the one he has w^on out of the whole world for 
the express purpose of being his companion. Now 
I say no matter how much opposition or obloquy 
one may encounter outside, if he is married, — 
married in any such sense as is worthy the name, 
— it would not be possible for him to be lonely. 
He might feel the want of support in pushing 
on his work, but there w^ould be no void in his 
hfe. His hard intellectual work w^ould fill his 
head and his wife would fill his heart. Yet, 
Robertson writes, " I am alone, and shall be till I 
die," and I think it was very inconsiderate and 
wicked in him to say it. A woman might break 
her heart over a less indignity than that. 

ff. Hear ! hear ! 

L O, now you may laugh. 

5". I am thankful even for so much. 

I. But just ask yourself, how would a man feel 
if his wife w^rote to her female friend, "I am 
alone, and shall be till I die " ; and not once, but 
repeatedly ? It would be just a confession of his 
failure towards her. 

ff. Is it not just possible there may have been 
some failure on her part tow^ards him ? 



ORCHARD TALK. 23 

L No, at least we will not suppose it possible. 
It would be a monstrosity which may occur in fact, 
but must not be introduced in fiction. What I 
suspect and fear and oppose is, that he did not 
look to her for what he wanted, not imagining the 
ore that lay there unwrought. If he did, and she 
withheld her hand, of course there is nothing more 
to be said ; only if men will not explore a mine 
before they take possession, they have themselves 
to blame when they find they are bankrupt. 

H. But if a woman's gold turns out to be 
pyrites, she may fill the air with wailing. 

L Well, a man has tracts to ''prospect" in so 
rich and broad, that it would seem to be the most 
egregious bhndness that should blunder, while the 
gold-field that stretches before a woman is often 
but a corner lot, where it is pyrites or nothing. 
And the pyrites glitters, and there is no gold to 
compare it with ; so it is less surprising when she 
makes a bad investment. No, I am afraid Mr. 
Robertson did not know what was good for him. 

H. What is it that Browning says, — 

Turn, turn, " a path of gold for Mm, 
And the need of a world of men for me " ? 

L But Robertson had his world of men too. 
His profession was in the midst of the world. 
His work was such as one might suppose would 
bring out everything that was in him of aggressive 
power. He was in the midst of active, manly 
vigor. He had just such a life as a wife should 



24 SUMMER REST. 

round and perfect. I cannot imagine anything 
in this world better. A good sword to wield, a 
fierce fight with wrong, and a home for the heart's 
life, — and yet those dreadful words ! 

jff. On the w^hole, does it not occur to you that 
you may be making much ado about nothing ? 
I dare say Mrs. Robertson was more than satis- 
fied, — counted herself a supremely happy wo- 
man. Why, then, should you fret ? 

L She ought not to have been satisfied. 

H. It is a pity that some people will persist 
in thinking themselves happy in spite of the obsti- 
nate endeavors of philanthropy to enlighten them 
as to the true state of the case. 

J. Some people have a way of shutting their 
eyes to what they do not choose to see. 

H. Let us fall back, rather, on the commonplace 
supposition that the good man's illness and suffer- 
ing made him morbid and unduly sensitive, or that 
something was kept back in his life, — some in- 
ward jar and shock, — which, if we knew it, would 
account for his tremulo^ — which would leave 
him never again quite trustful. Is not something 
somewhere said about a '' blow, the sudden ruin 
of a close friendship " ? Such a thing might, I 
conceive, change the whole current of a man's 
being. 

I. Yes, and these causes, too, may excuse the 
tone of complaint which sometimes rises high in 
his letters, giving — well, now, it seems almost 



ORCHARD TALK, 25 

wrong to say so, but I think there is just a shade 
of unmanhness. 

a. But remember all the complaining we read 
of was spread over his whole life, though we read 
it in a few hours. It probably makes an impres- 
sion greater on us than on his friends, who felt it 
only at intervals of months, perhaps years. 

I. True, and I don't know that one really 
loves him less for this life of his, but one, per- 
haps, reverences him less. It makes him a little 
more common. It shows him only level with the 
clouds, and not high enough for the eternal sun- 
shine above them. But perfect strength makes 
no outcry. It is so grand to be calm. It is so he- 
roic to be untouched. It is so godUke to give all 
things, and crave nothing. Ah well, Robertson 
was thoroughly noble ! — who shall cast a stone at 
him ? — only he was a little unstrung by illness, 
and so did not take his troubles so cheerily as 
he otherwise would have done. 

H, But if you take your troubles cheerily, how 
is any one to know you have troubles ? 

L What if no one should know ? 

H. You get no credit for your endurance. 
What does it profit to be a hero, and nobody 
know it ? Put your annoyances out of sight, and 
go blithely about your business, and what is the 
gain ? Admiration for your heroism ? By no 
means. People only say you do not mind these 
things, and keep on inflicting them. Silent en- 



26 SUMMER REST. 

durance must be blatant, or it will not be count- 
ed in. 

/. O, I would not have any one bear what can 
be helped. That is sloth, not fortitude. And 
if you cannot bear alone what is inevitable, why 
you must have recourse to others. But it is 
better to bear it alone. The measure of our 
weakness is the measure of our strength, — if 
we conquer it. 

IT. I admire that sentence, — especially its per- 
spicuity. 

I. Why do you sit here idling away your time 
all the morning ? Why do you not go and feed 
the cows, or pull weeds, or do some such work as 
is adapted to your capacities ? 

If you are tired, dear reader, or have some- 
thing else to do, you can make believe the chapter 
ends here ; but I have nothing else to do, am not 
at all tired, and shall go on indefinitely. 

For the full-blown summer weather is too fine 
for anything but to sit in the sunshine and shade 
and enjoy it. When the whole earth is alert, one 
can afford to be idle, with a most fruitful idleness. 
Indeed, one can afford nothing else, for the beauty 
of the month of months is too rare and perfect 
a thing to miss without grievous loss. It is a 
pitiable waste to squander May-days and Junes 
for care and weariness, and gold and dross, that 
perish with the using. There is plenty of winter 



ORCHARD TALK. 27 

for professional uses in a climate like ours. Now 
let us medicine our pride by laying aside our blun- 
dering, blustering busy-ness, and see how rhythmi- 
cally this old Mother Earth does her work. It 
is just to loiter and loiter, to listen and linger. 
It is only to stroll out aimlessly, alone or in such 
company as deepens and • sweetens solitude ; to 
follow the drift of the shadows and the droop of 
the violets ; straying through the orchard, ankle- 
deep in the dense, purple clover, sweet to sight 
and smell and taste; — and there stands soft-eyed 
Mooly, her head well stretched over the orchard 
wall, smelling the tempting smells, and wishing 
she were in your shoes. Stroke her long nose, 
pressing up to meet your hand. Beautiful Mooly, 
with your lovely longing eyes, do not be impa- 
tient. It is all going to be yours by and by, the 
honey-sweet clover and the buttercups and the 
juicy rich grass. It is not so bad a thing to be a 
cow, after all. And this Mooly cow, mild as she 
looks, loves her fat pastures and has a will of her 
own. I go after her sometimes at night, and 
though she has nothing to do but eat and drink all 
day long, it is almost impossible to get her past the 
clover-banks in the lane. An affectionate pat on 
her back and sides moves her but a single step. 
I take hold of a horn and pull. I might as well 
pull at the bow of the Great Eastern. I go up 
the bank and push against her with all my might, 
as if she were aground on the slope. She turns 



28 SUMMER REST. 

her head back upon me with a look which says, 
"Is it a fly you are trying to persuade off me ? 
Thank you ! " I try what virtue there is in 
stones, hke the old man in the spelhng-book ; she 
walks leisurely to the other side and resumes her 
craunching. I am tempted to bang her faithful old 
bones with the knotted head of my pilgrim's staff, 
but never yield to the temptation, and we grad- 
ually work our passage home in very good humor 
with each other, thinking one time is about as 
good as another, when it is all summer evening. 

And if we stroll far enough down the sloping 
orchard, where 

*' Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot," 
we come out upon the knoll beyond and the cow- 
path under it; and the pond and the pine-trees and 
the swamp, odorous with wild-honeysuckle, azalia, 
which shall be swamp-apples in their season, tender, 
rich with tropical hints ; and here are the black- 
berry vines smothering the gray wall, and secretly 
ripening the pulpy fruit whose saucy black beauty 
shall soon laugh out from every chink and crevice ; 
and on the hillside a grove of oaks dearer than 
Dodona, — a little wood, but dense and deep 
enough to lose yourself in as it creeps up and 
around to the other side of the hill, defying winter 
and the north-wind there, here welcoming sum- 
mer and the south, a whole choir of breezes hum- 
ming through the tree-tops, and a troop of fairies 
flinging shadows on a little pool at the foot of the 



ORCHARD TALK. 29 

grove. And do you know Low grasshoppers grow ? 
I do, for I have seen them. Come out here some 
warm evening and you will see little clots of 
foam on the grass. Stir one open, and all covered 
up inside will be a baby grasshopper, green and 
delicate ; and that is all I know about it. Down 
here in the oak wood there is a sunny spot where 
we almost always find ourselves sooner or later. 
It seems somehow as if the Mays and Junes distil 
a more subtile essence here than elsewhere. The 
tenderness of the one and the fulness of the other 
meet and melt into a warmth of wooing, into a 
gracious fervor and welcome, which there is neither 
wish nor will to resist. The songs of the old poets 
sing themselves through these shadowy places. 
Life is a sunny south sea, that buoys you and 
rocks you and wraps you about with a delicious 
rest. All sounds of the world without come 
robbed of their dissonance, and blend into a low 
melody, less heard than felt. To Tennyson 

" The individual withers, and the world is more and more," 

but here the world is far off. Its sights fade 
out of view and thought, and you only sit among 
the shadows, recline along the sward, toying with 
the wild columbines and the geraniums and the 
rank grasses, and all the spirit of the woods 
breathes into the very penetralia of the soul. It 
seems you would hardly care ever to hear another 
voice or do a deed again. Passivity is so much 



30 SUMMER REST. 

better than activity. Let us receive, and be con- 
tent to give nothing where our all is so little. 
This multiform life, gentle, continuous, harmonious, 
so puts to shame our harsh, crude efforts. The 
grace of the woods mocks the world's awkward 
gait. There was a man once planted (" Nam 
Polydorus ego!^^')^ and pious ^neas found it no 
laughing matter to root him up. I wonder if 
these old fables, — fables of Narcissus and Danae 
and the wondrous loves of earth and heaven, — are 
not the graceful Greek way of draping what our 
harsh Saxon speech lays bare in the skeletons 
of science, or what our eyes, that love less these 
earth-forces, have as yet failed to discern. 

" Danae in a golden tower, 
Where no love was, loved a shower/' 

More precious than golden showers the warm 
April rains that descend on these swells and dim- 
ples of verdure, and precious as any fabled Perseus 
the fruit they bear. Is it hard to believe that one 
might dwell in the woods away from men, and 
live so deep down in the secret of the forest, of 
rock and tree and water-flow and fall, that their 
individualities should intermingle, there should be 
a kind of out-go and in-come, so that one should 
hardly know where the human ended and the 
earth-born began? 

There is a real and wondrous influence astir in 
that world which we call nature, whose deathless 



ORCHARD TALK. 31 

life endures spite of all our feeble prating about 
it. But prate we must, for puny love is just as 
exacting towards a puny soul as a great passion 
to the great. The bright-hearted Greeks have 
painted and sculptured and sung, for all succeed- 
ing ages, the beauty of their wave-washed home. 
Every grove and fountain, vine-clad hill, mountain- 
pass and shady valley has its story of passion, 
of struggle, or of fate. Here a hero was born, 
here a virgin slain. Green islands rise from the 
sea, thick studded with the footprints of the gods. 
Ears that never heard the surf washing against 
a foreign shore have heard the thunders of Jove 
rolling around the brow of Olympus ; and sit- 
ting on a pleasant slope in this young Western 
world, I see across three thousand years and 
twice three thousand miles the smile and sparkle 
of the blue iEgean Sea. 

The Greeks are gone. Gone dryad and hama- 
dryad, nymph and naiad. Gone faun and satyr 
from the Latin groves. Gone elf and fay from 
the sombre northern wilds. Druids no longer 
deepen the gloom of the awful forest ; the tricksy 
fairies have ceased their dance, and there is no 
glitter of English armor, no dart of daring Eng- 
lish outlaw gleaming in the gay greenwood. But 
the gay greenwood has not lost its spell ; for it lay 
in none of these. Deeper than haunt of nymph 
or fairy is the secret place where its soul abide th. 
You cannot linger in its recesses without feeling 



82 SUMMER REST. 

its mystical charm. Rests upon you a calm con- 
tent. Your spirit is set to a more peaceful mel- 
ody. You lose yourself in the twitter and chirp 
and whirr of the unconscious multitudes around 
you. Vexations, pleasures, hopes, disappoint- 
ments, ambitions, anxieties, are all dissolved in 
the magic alembic which distils the one elixir 
peace. Yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow are but 
the present moment, unending. The 

" Queen and Huntress chaste and fair " 

might chase her flying hart past your hiding-place, 
Robert of Huntington might glide from behind 
a tree, bravely bedight, and share his hard-fought 
gains with faithful Little John, or the white wings 
of a visitant from some upper world, that goes 
sailing through the night, might wave athwart 
your dream, and you would feel no shock and 
scarcely a surprise. In the wide world none know 
this spot but the birds and the squirrels, the in- 
sects, the wood-cutters, and just ourselves. Yet 
here the vintage pours its choicest wine. Sweet, 
wise words spoken long, long ago are woven in 
with the wild vine's teasing tangle. Minstrel and 
troubadour over the sea, dead now these many 
generations, live again in the 

" Lisp of leaves and ripple of rain." 

Dust is the hand that wrote, dust the lips that 
sung, but, vivid with the vigor of immortals, the 



ORCHARD TALK, 33 

spirit of the past dwells forevermore in these 
whispering woods, and, loving the greenwood and 
the May of its own lusty time, scorns not to light 
up a wild American jungle with the light of other 
days. 

And over all this sunny scene broods the spirit 
of a deeper past. Far back in the twilight of 
eternity, what hfe was it that lounged through the 
lazy centuries ? What rank trees, never blossom- 
ing, yawned up to the dun skies and stretched 
their indolent arms in the hot moist air? What 
slow-souled lizards, huge and harmless, trailed 
their giant length through the succulent thickets ? 
Great solemn eyes that smiled upon no flower, 
heavy ears that heard no voice of bird nor any 
music softer than the swirl of the restless sea, or 
the moans of the laboring land, — wild monsters 
paddling through the warm dark waters, or wad- 
dling over the jellied earth, — the treacherous 
quicksands engulfed them, the pit opened her 
mouth and swallowed them ; but their story is not 
untold. The molten continent took it and de- 
clared it to the listening ages. The listening ages 
heard it and graved it on the rock forever. A 
little cloud sailed across the sky, flung its largess 
to the ground, and went on its way most evan- 
escent of all the children of Nature. And the 
perpetual hills have no surer record to-day than 
that scurrying cloud that hurled its drops slant- 
wise on the mud a million years ago. 

2* 



A PROSE HENRIADE. 




OT only is the time of the singing of 
birds come, but the time of the cack- 
ling of homely, honest barn-yard fowls, 
^ that have never had justice done them. 
Why do we extol foreign growths and neglect 
the children of the soil ? Where is there a more 
magnificent bird than the Rooster ? What a lofty 
air ! What a spirited pose of the head ! Note his 
elaborately scalloped comb, his stately steppings,^ 
the hthe, quick, graceful motions of his arching 
neck. Mark his brilliant plumage, smooth and 
lustrous as satin, soft as floss silk. What necklace 
of a duchess ever surpassed in beauty the circles 
of feathers which he wears, — layer shootino; over 
layer, up and down, hither and thither, an amber 
w^aterfall, swift and soundless as the light, but 
never disturbing the matchless order of his array? 
What plume from African deserts can rival the 
rich hues, the graceful curves, and the palm-like 
erectness of his tail ? All his colors are tropical. 
With every quick motion the tints change as in 



A PROSE HENRIADE, 35 

a prism, and each tint is more splendid than the 
last : green more beautiful than any green, ex- 
cept that of a duck's neck ; brown infiltrated 
with gold, and ranging through the whole gamut 
of its possibilities. (I am not sure that this last is 
correct in point of expression, but it is correct in 
point of sense, as any one who ever saw a red 
rooster will bear witness.) 

Hens are not intrinsically handsome, but they 
abundantly prove the truth of the old adage, 
" Handsome is that handsome does." Lord 
Kaimes describes one kind of beauty as that 
founded on the relations of objects. And surely 
the relation of a hen to a dozen white, fresh 
eggs, and the relation of those eggs to puddings 
and custards, and the twenty-five or fifty cents 
which they can have for the asking, make even an 
% ungainly hen, like many heromes in novels, "not 
beautiful, but very interesting." '' Twenty thou- 
sand dollars," said a connoisseur in such matters, 
" is a handsome feature in any lady's face." And 
the " cut-cut-cut-ca-D-A-H-cut " of a hen, whose 
word is as good as her bond for an egg a day, is a 
handsome feather in any bird's cap. Once, how- 
ever, this trumpet of victory deceived me, though 
by no fault of the hen. I heard it sounding lust- 
ily, and I ransacked the barn on tiptoe to discover 
the new-made nest and the exultant mater-famili" 
as. But instead of a white old hen with yellow 
legs, who had laid her master many eggs, there, on 



36 SUMMER REST. 

a barrel, stood brave Chanticleer, cackling away for 
dear life, — Hercules holding the distaff among his 
Omphales ! Now, — for there are many things to 
be learned from hens, ■ — mark the injustice of the 
tyrant man. From time immemorial, girls, — at 
least country girls, — - have been taught that 

*' A whistling girl and a crowing hen 
Always come to some bad end " : 

but not a word is said about a cackling rooster ! 
Worse still, a crowing hen is so rare a thing that 
its very existence is problematical. I never heard 
of one out of that couplet. I have made diligent 
inquiry, but I have not been able to find any 
person who had heard, or who had ever seen or 
heard of any one who had heard, a crowing hen. 
But these very hands have fed, these very eyes 
seen, and these ears heard a cackling rooster ! 
Where is manly impartiality, not to say chivalry ? ^ 
Why do men overlook the crying sins of their 
own sex, and expend all their energies in attempt- 
ing to eradicate sins which never existed in the 
other ? 

I have lived among hens lately, and I know all 
about them. They are just like people. Not a 
few only, but the whole human race, are chicken- 
hearted. 

Hens are fond of little mysteries. With tons 
of hay at their disposal, they will steal a nest in 
a discarded feeding-trough. With nobody to har- 
bor an evil thought against them, they will hide 



A PROSE HENRI A DE, 87 

under the corn-stalks as carefully as if a sheriff 
were on their track. They will not go to their 
nests while you are about, but tarry midway and 
meditate profoundly on fixed fate, free-will, fore- 
knowledge absolute, till you are tired of watching 
and waiting, and withdraw. — No, you did not 
know it all before. The world is in a state of 
Cimmerian darkness regarding hens. There were 
never any chickens hatched till three weeks from 
a week before Fast Day. How should you, my 
readers, know anything about them ? Be docile, 
and I will enlighten you. 

Hens must have a depression where the bump 
of locality should be, for they have no manner 
of tenderness for old haunts. " Where are the 
birds in last year's nests?" queries the poet ; but 
he might have asked quite as pertinently, " Where 
►are the birds in last month's nests ? " Echo, if 
she were at all familiar with the subject, would 
reply, '' The birds are here, but where are the 
nests ? " Hens very sensibly decide that it is 
easier to build a new house than to keep the old 
one in order ; and having laid one round of eggs, 
off they go to erect, or rather to excavate, another 
dwelling. You have scarcely learned the way to 
their nook above the great beam when it is aban- 
doned, and they betake themselves to a hole at 
the very bottom of the haymow. I wish I could 
tell you a story about a Hebrew prophet crawling 
under a barn after hens' eggs, and crawling out 



38 SUMMER REST. 

again from the musty darkness into sweet light 
with his clothes full of cobwebs, his eyes full of 
dust, his hands full of eggs, to find himself wink- 
ing and blinking in the midst of a party of ladies 
and gentlemen who had come lion-hunting from 
a farre countrie. I cannot tell you, because it 
would be a breach of confidence ; but I am going 
to edit my Sheikh's Life and Letters, if I live 
long enough, and he does not live too long, and 
then you shall have the whole story. 

Another very singular habit hens have, — that 
of dusting themselves. They do not seem to care 
for bathing, like canary-birds ; but in w^arm after- 
noons, when they have eaten their fill, they like 
to stroll into the highway, where the dust lies 
ankle-deep in heaps and ridges, and settle down 
and stir and burrow in it till it has penetrated 
through all their inmost feathers, and so filled^ 
them, that, when they arise and shake themselves, 
they stand in a cloud of dust. I do not like this 
habit in the hens ; yet I observe how a corre- 
spondence exists in all the Vertebrata ; for do not 
fine ladies similarly dust themselves ? They do 
not, indeed, sit in the road a la Turque, They 
box up the dust, and take it to their dressing- 
rooms, and, because Nature has not provided them 
with feathers, ingenuity more than supplies the 
deficiencv with the softest of white down brushes, 
that harbor and convey the coveted dust. O I 
doubt not through the races one resembling pur- 



A PROSE HENRI ADE, 39 

pose runs ; and many a stately matron and many 
a lovely maiden might truly say unto the hen, 
*' Thou art my sister." 

Did I say I knew all about hens ? The half 
was not told you ; for I am wise in chickens too. 
I know the tribe from " egg to bird," as the coun- 
try people say, when they w^ish to express the 
most radical, sweeping acquain^tance with any sub- 
ject, — a phrase, by the way, wdiose felicity is 
hardly to be comprehended till experience has 
unfolded its meaning. 

When hens have laid a certain number of eggs, 
— twelve or twenty, — they evince a strong dis- 
position, I might almost say a determination, to 
sit.* In every such case, it is plain that they 
ought to be allowed to sit. It is a violation of 
nature to souse them in cold water in order to 
^make them change their minds ; and Marcus An- 
toninus tell us that nothing is evil which is accord- 
ing to nature. But people want eggs, and they 
do not care for nature ; and the consequence is, 
that hens are obliged to undergo '' heroic treat- 
ment " of various kinds. Sometimes it is the cold 
bath ; sometimes it is the hospital. One I tied to 
the bottom of one of the standards ; but, eager 
to escape, and ignorant of the qualities of cord, 

* I say sit, out of regard to the proprieties of the occasion ; hut 
I do not expose myself to ridicule by going about among the 
neighbors and talking of a sitting hen ! Everywhere but in print 
hens set. 



40 SUMMER REST, 

she flew up over the top rail, and, the next 
time I entered the barn, presented the unpleasing 
spectacle of a dignified and deliberate fowl hang- 
ing in mid-air by one leg. Greatly alarmed, I 
hurried her down. Life was not extinct, except 
in that leg. I rubbed it tenderly till warmth was 
restored, and then it grew so hot that I feared 
inflammation would set in, and made local applica- 
tions to check the tendency, wondering in my 
own mind whether, in case worse should come to 
w^orst, she could get on at all with a Palmer leg. 
The next morning the question became unneces- 
sary, as she walked quite well with her own. 
The remaining hens were put in hospital till they 
signified a willingness to resume their former prof- 
itable habits, — except one who was arbitrarily 
chosen to be foster-mother of the future brood. 
Fifteen eggs, fair and fresh, reserved for the pur- 
pose, I counted out and put into her nest ; and 
there she sat day after day and all day long, with 
a quietness, a silent, patient persistence, which I 
admired, but could not in the least imitate ; for 
I kept continually prying her . up to see how 
matters fared. Many hens would have resented 
so much interference, but she knew it was sym- 
pathy, and not malice ; besides, she was very good- 
natured, and so was I, and we stood on the best 
possible footing towards each other. As we say 
in the country, '' A hen's time is not much to 
her " ; and in this case the opinion was certainly 
correct. 



A PROSE HENRIADE. 41 

One morning I thought I heard a faint noise. 
Turning out the good old creature, that I might 
take an observation, eggs still, and no chickens, 
were discernible ; but the tiniest little, silvery, sun- 
ny-hearted chirp that you ever heard, inside the 
eggs, and a little, tender pecking from every im- 
prisoned chick, standing at his crystal door, and 
with his faint, fairy tap, tap, tap, craving admis- 
sion into the great world. Never can 1 forget or 
describe the sensations of that moment; and, as 
promise rapidly culminated in performance, — as 
the eggs ceased to be eggs, and analyzed them- 
selves into shattered shells and chirping chickens, 
— it seemed as if I had been transported back to 
the beginning of creation. Right before my eyes 
I saw, in my hands I held, the mystery of life. 
These eggs, that had been laid under my very 
eyes as it were, that I had at least hunted and 
found and confiscated and restored, — these eggs 
that I had broken and eaten a thousand times, 
and learned of a surety to be nothing but eggs, — 
were before me now ; and, lo, they were eyes 
and feathers and bill and claws ! Yes, little puff- 
ball, I saw you when you were hard and cold and 
had no more life than a Lima bean. I mio-ht 
have scrambled you, or boiled you, or made a 
pasch-egg of you, and you would not have known 
that anything was happening. If you had been 
cooked then, you would have been only an omelet ; 
now you may be a fricassee. As I looked at the 



42 SUMMER REST. 

nest, so lately full only of white quiet, now swarm 
ing with downy life, and vocal with low, soft 
music, 

" I felt a newer life in every gale." 

O, no one can tell, till he has chickens of his own, 
what delicious emotions are stirred in the heart by 
their downy, appealing tenderness ! 

Swarming, however, as the nest seemed, it soon 
transpired that only seven chickens had transpired. 
Eight eggs still maintained their integrity. I re- 
marked to the hen, that she would better keep 
on awhile longer, and I would take the seven into 
the house, and provide for them. She assented, 
having, justly enough, all confidence in my saga- 
city; and I put them into a warm old worsted 
hood, and brought them into the house. But the 
hood was not a hen, though it was tucked around 
them almost to the point of suffocation ; and they 
filled the house with dolorous cries, — "yopping " 
it is called in the rural districts. Nothing would 
soothe them but to be cuddled together in some- 
body's lap, and brooded with somebody's hand. 
Then their shrill, piercing shrieks would die away 
into a contented chirp of heartfelt satisfaction. I 
took a world of comfort in those chickens, — it is so 
pleasant to feel that you are really making sentient 
beings happy. The tiny things grew so familiar 
and fond in a few hours that they could hardly tell 
which was which, — I or the hen. I could do 



A PROSE HENRI ADE. 43 

everything for them but cluck. I tried that, but 
the experiment was not satisfactory to myself, 
and as regards deceiving the chicks it was a dead 
faihire ; otherwise they accepted the situation 
gracefully. They would all fall asleep in a soft, 
stirring lump for five seconds, and then rouse up, 
with no apparent cause, but as suddenly and simul- 
taneously as if the drum had beat a reveille, and 
go foraging about in the most enterprising manner. 
One would snap at a ring, under the impression 
that it was petrified dough, I suppose ; and all the 
rest would rush up determinedly to secure a share 
in the prize. Next they would pounce upon a but- 
ton, evidently thinking it curd ; and though they 
must have concluded, after a while, that it was the 
hardest kind of coagulated milk on record, they 
were not restrained from renewing the attack in 
squads at irregular intervals. When they first 
broke camp, we put soaked and sweetened cracker 
into their bills ; but they developed such an appe- 
tite, that, in view of the high price of sugar, we 
cut off their allowance, and economized on Indian 
meal and bread-water. Every night they went 
to the hen, and every morning they came in to 
me ; and still Dame Partlet sat with stolid pa- 
tience, and still eight eggs remained. I con- 
cluded, at length, to let the eggs take their chance 
with another hen, and restore the first to freedom 
and her chickens. But just as I was about to 
commence operations, some one announced, that, 



44 SUMMER REST, 

if eggs are inverted during the process of incuba- 
tion, the chickens from them will be crazy. Ap- 
palled at the thought of a brood of chickens 
laboring under an aberration of mind, yet fired 
with the love of scientific investigation, I inverted 
one by way of experiment, and placed it in another 
nest. The next morning, when I entered the 
barn, Biddy stretched out her neck, and declared 
that there was no use in waiting any longer, and 
she was determined to leave the place, which she 
accordingly did, discovering, to my surprise, two 
little -dead, crushed, flattened chickens. Poor 
things ! I coaxed them on a shingle, and took 
them into the house to show to a person whose 
name I have often had occasion to mention, and 
who, in all experimental matters, considers my 
testimony good for nothing without the strongest 
corroborative evidence. Notice now the unreason- 
ing obstinacy with which people will cling to their 
prejudices in the face of the most palpable oppos- 
ing facts. 

*' Where did these come from ? " I asked. 

*' Probably the hen trod on them and killed 
them," he said. 

" But there were seven whole eggs remaining, 
and the insane one was in another nest." 

'' Well, he supposed some other hen might have 
laid in the nest after the first had begun to sit. 
Hens often did so." 

'' No, for I had counted the eggs every day." 



A PROSE HENRIADE. 45 

Here, then, was an equation to be produced 
between fifteen original eggs on one side, and 
seven whole eggs, seven live chickens, two dead 
chickens, and another egg on the other. My 
theory was, that two of the eggs contained twins. 

" But no," says Halicarnassus, — '' such a thing 
was never known as two live chickens from one 

egg-" 

" But these were dead chickens," I affirmed. 

'' But they were alive when they pecked out. 
They could not break the shell when they were 
dead." 

'' But the two dead chickens may have been in 
the same shell with two live ones, and, when the 
live ones broke the shell, the dead ones dropped 



out." 



" Nonsense ! " 

'^ But here are the facts, Mr. Gradgrind, — 
seven live chickens, two dead chickens, seven 
whole eggs, and another egg to be accounted for, 
and only fifteen eggs to account for them." 

Yet, as if a thing that never happened on our 
farm is a thing that never can happen, oblivious 
of the fact that "a pair of chickens " is a common 
phrase enough, — simply because a man never saw 
twin chickens, he maintains that there cannot be 
any such thing as twin chickens. This, too, in 
spite of one egg I brought in large enough to 
hold a brood of chickens. In fact, it does not 
look like an egg ; it looks like the keel of a man- 
of-war. 



46 SUMMER REST. 

The problem remains unsolved. But never, 
while I remember my addition table, can you 
make me believe that seven whole — But the 
individual mentioned above is so sore on this 
point, that the moment I get thus far he leaves 
the room, and my equation remains unstated. 

There is a great deal of human nature in hens. 
They have the same qualities that people have, 
but unmodified. A human mother loves her chil- 
dren, but she is restrained by a sense of propriety 
from tearing other mothers' children in pieces. 
A hen has no such checks ; her motherhood exists 
without any qualification. Her intense love for 
her own brood is softened by no social requirements. 
If a poor lost waif from another coop strays into 
her realm, no pity, no sympathy springing from the 
thought of her own offspring, moves her to kind- 
ness ; but she goes at it with a demoniac fury, 
and would peck its little life out, if fear did not 
lend it wings. She has a self-abnegation as great 
as that of human mothers. Her voracity and 
timidity disappear. She goes almost without food 
herself, that her chicks may eat. She scatters 
the dough about with her own bill, that it may 
be accessible to the little bills, or, perhaps, to 
teach them how to work. The wire-worms, the 
bugs, the flies, all the choice little tidbits that her 
soul loves, she divides for her chicks, reserving 
not a morsel for herself. All their gambols and 
pranks and wild ways she bears with untiring 



A PROSE HENRIADE, 47 

patience. They hop up by twos and threes on 
her back. They peck at her bill. One saucy 
little imp actually jumped up and caught hold 
of the little red lappet above her beak, and, hang- 
ing to it, swung to and fro half a dozen times ; 
and she was evidently only amused, and reckoned 
it a mark of precocity. 

Yet, with all her intense, absorbing parental 
love, the hen has very serious deficiencies, — de- 
ficiencies occasioned by the same lack of modifica- 
tion which I have before mentioned. Devoted to 
her little ones, she will scratch vigorously and un- 
tiringly to provide them food, yet fails to remem- 
ber that they do not stand before her in a straight 
line out of harm's way, but are hovering around 
her on all sides in a dangerous proximity. Like 
the poet, she looks not forward nor behind. If 
they are beyond reach, very well ; if they are 
not, all the same ; scratch, scratch, scratch in the 
soil goes her great, strong, horny claw, and up 
flies a cloud of dust, and away goes a poor un- 
fortunate, w^hirling involuntary somersets through 
the air without the least warning. She is a living 
monument of the mischief that may be done by 
giving undue prominence to one idea. I only 
wonder that so few broken heads and dislocated 
joints bear witness to the falseness of such phi- 
losophy. I am quite sure that if I should give 
the chickens such merciless impulses, they would 
not recover from the effects so speedily. Unhke 



48 SUMMER REST. 

human mothers, too, she has no especial tender- 
ness for invalids. She makes arrangements only 
for a heahhy family. If a pair of tiny wings 
droop, and a pair of tiny legs falter, so much the 
worse for the unlucky owner ; but not one journey 
the less does Mother Hen take. She is the very 
soul of impartiality ; but there is no cosseting. 
Sick or well, chick must run with the others, or 
be left behind. Run they do, with a remarkable 
uniformity. I marvel to see the perfect under- 
standing among them all. Obedience is absolute 
on the one side, and control on the other, and 
without a single harsh measure. It is pure Qua- 
ker discipline, simple moral suasion. The specks 
understand her every word, and so do I — almost. 
When she is stepping about in a general way, — 
and hens always step, — she has simply a motherly 
sort of cluck, that is but a general expression of 
affection and oversight. But the moment she 
finds a worm or a crumb or a splash of dough, 
the note changes into a quick, eager " Here ! 
here ! here ! " and away rushes the brood pell- 
mell and topsy-turvy. If a stray cat approaches, 
or danger in any form, her defiant, menacing 
" C-r-r-r-r ! " shows her anger and alarm. 

See how, in Bedford jail, John Bunyan turned 
to good account the lessons learned in barn-yards. 
" ' Yet again,' said he, ' observe and look.' So 
they gave heed and perceived that the hen did 
walk in a fourfold method towards her chickens. 



A PROSE HENRIADE, 49 

1. She had a common call^ and that she hath all 
day long ; 2. She had a special call^ and that she 
had but sometimes ; 3. She had a brooding note ; 
and, 4. She had an outcry, ' Now,' said he, 
' compare this hen to your king, and these chick- 
ens to his obedient ones. For, answerable to her, 
himself has his methods which he walketh in 
towards his people : by his common call he gives 
nothing ; by his special call he always has some- 
thing to give ; he has also a brooding voice for 
them that are under his wing ; and he has an 
outcry to give the alarm when he seeth the enemy 
come. I chose, my darlings, to lead you into 
the room where such things are, because you are 
women, and they are easy for you.' " Kind Mr. 
Interpreter ! 

To personal fear, as I have intimated, the hen- 
mother is a stranger ; but her power is not always 
equal to her pluck. One week ago this very day, 
— ah me ! this very hour, — the cat ran by the 
window with a chicken in her mouth. Cats are 
a separate feature in country establishments. In 
the city I have understood them to lead a no- 
madic, disturbed, and somewhat shabby life. In 
the country they attach themselves to special locali- 
ties and prey upon the human race. We have 
three steady and several occasional oats quartered 
upon us. One was retained for the name of the 
thing, — called derivatively Maltesa, and Molly 
" for short." One was adopted for charity, — a 



50 SUMMER REST, 

hideous, saffron-hued, forlorn little wretch, left 
behind by a Celtic family, called, from its color, 
Aurora, contracted into Rory O'More. She had 
a narrow escape one day last winter. I happened 
to pass through the kitchen in the afternoon and 
detected her taking an after-dinner nap in the 
stove-oven, lured evidently by the genial warmth 
of the fading fire. I know it was not exactly a 
proper place for a cat, but she looked so cunning 
and comfortable, I had not the heart to disturb 
her, and, not disturbing her, there was no harm in 
increasing her comfort, so I shut the oven door 
to retain the heat as long as possible. At dusk, 
I went to give her her supper and send her to 
bed in the barn as usual, but she did not make 
her appearance. Forgetting the episode of the 
oven I called at all the doors, but no kitty re- 
sponded, and as she was a cat of an eminently 
social turn of mind, I concluded she was visiting 
the neighbors and gave her no further thought. 
Next mprniijg a fine fire was built and breakfast 
preparations were going on merrily when a stifled 
'' mew " began to be heard. There was another 
search in closet and cupboard to no purpose, when 
of a sudden my wits came back to me. I flung 
open the oven door and out leaped kitty, out and 
out and never stopped till she had buried herself 
in a snow-bank. I was very sorry, and consoled 
her with brimming bowls that day ; but apart 
from the slight discomfort of the process, I never 



A PROSE HENRIADE. 51 

could see that her baking did her the least harm. 
The third was a fierce black-and-white unnamed 
wild creature, of whom one never got more than 
a glimpse in her savage flight. Cats are tolerated 
here from a tradition that they catch rats and 
mice, but they do not. We catch the mice our- 
selves and put them in a barrel, and put the cat in 
after them ; and then she is frightened out of her 
wits. As for rats, they will gather wherever corn 
and potatoes congregate, cats or no cats. It is 
said in the country, that, if you w^ite a polite 
letter to rats, asking them to go away, they will 
go. I received my information from one w^ho had 
tried the experiment, or known it to be tried, w^ith 
great success. Standing ready always to write a 
letter on the slightest provocation, you may be 
sure I did not neglect so good an opportunity. 
The letter acknowledged their skill and sagacity, 
applauded their valor and their perseverance, but 
stated, that, in the present scarcity of labor, the 
resident family were not able to provide more 
supplies than were necessary for their own im- 
mediate use and for that of our brave soldiers, 
and they must therefore beg the Messrs. Rats to 
leave their country for their country's good. It 
was laid on the potato-chest, and I have never 
seen a rat since ! 

Short colloquy between the principal actors in 
this drama : — 

H. Had you ever seen one before ? 



52 SUMMER REST. 

I. Well, — perhaps, — no ! 

While I have been penning this quadrupedic 
episode, you may imagine Molly, formerly Mal- 
tesa, as Kinglake would say, bearing off the 
chicken in triumph to her domicile. But the 
alarm is given, and the whole plantation turns 
out to rescue the victim or perish in the attempt. 
Molly takes refuge in a sleigh, but is ignominiously 
ejected. She rushes with great leaps under the 
corn-barn, and defies us all to follow her. But 
she does not know that in a contest strategy may 
be an overmatch for swiftness. She is familiar 
wdth the sheltering power of the elevated corn- 
barn, but she never conjectures to what base uses 
a clothes-pole may come, until one plunges into 
her sides. As she is not a St. Medard Convul- 
sionist, she does not like it, but strikes a bee-line 
for the piazza, and rushes through the lattice-work 
into the darkness underneath. We stoop to con- 
quer, and she hurls Greek fire at hs from her 
wrathful eyes, but cannot stand against a reinforce- 
ment of poles wdiich vex her soul. With teeth 
still fastened upon her now unconscious victim, 
she leaves her place of refuge, which indeed is 
no refuge for her, and gallops through the yard 
and across the field; but an unseen column has 
flanked her, and she turns back only to fall into 
the hands of the main army, — too late, alas ! for 
the tender chick, who has picked his last w^orm, 
and will never chirp again. But his death is 



A PROSE HENRIADE, 53 

speedily avenged. Within the space of three days, 
Molly, formerly Maltesa, is taken into custody, 
tried, convicted, sentenced, committed to prison in 
an old wagon-box, and transported to Botany Bay ; 
greatly to the delight of Rory O'More, formerly 
Aurora, who, in the presence of her overgrown 
contemporary, was never suffered to call her soul 
her own, much less a bone or a crust. Indeed, 
Molly n^ver seemed half so anxious to eat, her- 
self, as she was to bind Rory to total abstinence. 
When a plate was set for them, the preliminary 
ceremony was invariably a box on the ear for poor 
Rory, or a grab on the neck, from Molly's spas- 
modic paw, which would not release its hold till 
armed intervention enforced a growling neutral- 
ity. In short, like the hens, these cats held up 
a mirror to human nature. They showed what 
men and women would be, if they were — cats; 
which they would be, if a few modifying qualities 
were left out. They exhibit selfishness and greed 
in their pure forms, and we see and ought to shun 
the unlovely shapes. Evil propensities may be 
hidden by a silver veil, but they are none the 
less evil and bring forth evil fruit. Let cats de- 
light to snarl and bite, but let men and women 
be generous and beneficent. 

Little chickens, tender and winsome as they 
are, early discover the same disposition. When 
one of them comes into possession of the fore- 
quarter of a fly, he does not share it with his 



54 SUMMER REST. 

brother. He does not even quietly swallow it 
himself. He clutches it in his bill and flies around 
in circles and irregular polygons, like one dis- 
tracted, trying to find a corner where he can gor- 
mandize alone. It is no matter that not a single 
chicken is in pursuit, nor that there is enough 
and to spare for all. He hears a voice we cannot 
hear, telling him that the Philistines be upon him. 
And every chicken snatches his morsel and radi- 
ates from every other as fast as his little legs can 
carry him. His selfishness overpowers his sense, 
— which is, indeed, not a very signal victory, for 
his selfishness is very strong and his sense is very 
weak. It is no wonder that Hopeful was well- 
nigh moved to anger, and queried, " AVhy art 
thou so tart, my brother ? '' when Christian said 
to him, " Thou talkest like one upon whose head 
is the shell to this very day." To be compared 
to a chicken is disparaging enough ; but to be 
compared to a chicken so very young that he has 
not yet quite divested himself of his shell must 
be, as Pet Marjorie would say, " what Nature 
itself can't endure." A little chicken's greedy 
crop blinds his eyes to every consideration ex- 
cept that of the insect squirming in his bill. I 
watched once a bill-to-bill conflict for the pos- 
session of an overgrown earth-worm. One held 
it by the head, one by the tail, and then they 
just braced themselves back and pulled ! It was 
a laughable affair for the observer, but very awk- 



A PROSE HENRI ADE, 55 

ward for the worm. When one, exhausted, let go 
his hold, the other ran ; but the worm dangled 
under his feet and impeded him, and then a fresh 
little bill would seize it and scud in the opposite 
direction. The unhappy worm changed bills re- 
peatedly and dragged at each remove a shorten- 
ing chain, till it was at length gobbled up piece- 
meal, and on the whole very fairly distributed. 
But they fought just as furiously and ran just as 
frantically for its last inch as they did for his 
whole length. They snatched it from each other 
so quickly that the pursued would fly quite a 
distance after it had been plucked away before 
he discovered his loss, when, with a half-second's 
bewilderment, he would turn about and become 
pursuer. Apparently they never detected the 
deterioration in their prize, nor do I think it was 
ever quite clear to them what finally became of 
the worm. One might pity their victim, but I 
believe that kind of beast is somewhat indifferent 
to dissection, — on the whole rather likes it. 

A chicken is beautiful and round and full of 
cunning ways, but he has no resources for an 
emergency. He will lose his reckoning and be 
quite out at sea, though only ten steps from home. 
He never knows enough to turn a corner. All 
his intelligence is like light, moving only in straight 
lines. He is impetuous and timid, and has not 
the- smallest presence of mind or sagacity to dis- 
cern between friend and foe. He has no confi- 



56 SUMMER REST, 

dence in any earthly power that does not reside 
in an old hen. Her cluck will he follow to the 
last ditch, and to nothing else will he give heed. 
I am afraid that the Interpreter was putting almost 
too fine a point upon it, when he had Christiana 
and her children '' into another room, where was 
a hen and chickens, and bid them observe awhile. 
So one of the chickens went to the trough to 
drink, and every time she drank she lift up her 
head and her eyes towards heaven. ' See,' said he, 
* what this little chick doth, and learn of her to 
acknowledge whence your mercies come, by re- 
ceiving them with looking up.' " Doubtless the 
chick lift her eyes towards heaven, but a close 
acquaintance with the race would put anything 
but acknowledgment in the act. A gratitude 
that thanks Heaven for favors received, and then 
runs into a hole to prevent any other person from 
sharing the benefit of those favors, is a very ques- 
tionable kind of gratitude, and certainly should 
be confined to the bipeds that wear feathers. 

Yet, if you take away selfishness from a chick- 
en's moral make-up, and fatuity from his intel- 
lectual, you have a very charming little creature 
left. For, apart from their excessive greed, chick- 
ens seem to be affectionate. They have sweet 
social ways. They huddle together with fond 
caressing chatter, and chirp soft lullabies. Their 
toilet performances are full of interest. They trim 
each other's bills with great thoroughness and 



A PROSE HENRIADE, 57 

dexterity, much better indeed than they dress 
their own heads, — for their bunghng, awkward 
little claws make sad work of it. It is as much 
as they can do to stand on two feet, and they 
naturally make several revolutions when they at- 
tempt to stand on one. Nothing can be more 
ludicrous than their early efforts to walk. They 
do not really walk. They sight their object, waver, 
balance, decide, and then tumble forward, stopping 
all in a heap as soon as the original impetus is lost, 
— generally some way ahead of the place to which 
they wished to go. It is delightful to watch them 
as drowsiness films their round, bright, black eyes, 
and the dear old mother croons them under her 
ample wings, and they nestle in perfect harmony. 
How they manage to bestow themselves with such 
limited accommodations, or how they manage to 
breathe in a room so close, it is difficult to imagine. 
They certainly deal a staggering blow to our pre- 
conceived notions of the necessity of oxygen and 
ventilation, but they make it easy to see whence 
the Germans derived their fashion of sleeping under 
feather-beds. But breathe and bestow themselves 
they do. The deep mother-heart and the broad 
mother-wings take them all in. They penetrate 
her feathers, and open for themselves unseen little 
doors into the mysterious, brooding, beckoning 
darkness. But it is long before they can arrange 
themselves satisfactorily. They chirp, and stir, and 
snuggle, trying to find the warmest and softest 
3* 



58 SUMMER REST, 

nook. Now an uneasy head is thrust out, and 
now a whole tiny body, but it soon re-enters in 
another quarter, and at length the stir and chirr 
grow still. You see only a collection of little 
legs, as if the hen Avere a banyan-tree, and 
presently even they disappear, she settles down 
comfortably, and all are wrapped in a slumberous 
silence. And as I sit by the hour, watching their 
winning ways, and see all the steps of this sleepy 
subsidence, I can but remember that outburst of 
love and sorrow from the lips of Him who, though 
He came to earth from a dwelling-place of ineffa- 
ble glory, called nothing unclean because it was 
common, found no homely detail too homely or 
too trivial to illustrate the Father's love, but from 
the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the lilies 
of the field, the stones in the street, the foxes in 
their holes, the patch on a coat, the oxen in the 
furrow, the sheep in the pit, the camel under his 
burden, drew lessons of divine pity and patience, 
of heavenly duty and delight. Standing in the 
presence of the great congregation, seeing, as 
never man saw, the hypocrisy and the iniquity 
gathered before Him, - — seeing too, alas ! the ca- 
lamities and the woe that awaited this doomed 
people, a god-like pity overbears His righteous 
indignation, and cries out in passionate appeal, 
" O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the 
prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto 
thee, how often would I have gathered thy chil- 



A PROSE HENRI ADE. 59 

dren together, even as a hen gathereth her chick- 
ens under her wings, and ye would not ! " 

The agriculturist says that women take care 
of young chickens much better than men. I can 
easily beheve it. One of our chickens seemed to 
be drooping awhile ago, and I reported the fact to 
a man who lives on the farm. '' Sick, eh ? Better 
give him some Richardson's Bitters." That is all 
a man knows ! I suppose my face said something 
of the sort, for he added, '' Or perhaps take him 
out to drive with you for a change of air." I did 
neither, only let him diet a little, and he was well 
in a day. In fact, my experiments with chickens 
have been attended with a success so brilliant that 
unfortunate poultry-fanciers have appealed to me 
for assistance. I have even taken ailing chickens 
from the city to board. A brood of nineteen had 
rapidly dwindled down to eleven when it was 
brought to me, one even then dying. His little 
life ebbed away in a few hours ; but of the re- 
maining ten, nine, now in the third week of 
their abode under my roof, have recovered health, 
strength, and spirits, and bid fair to live to a good 
old age, if not prematurely cut off. One of them, 
more feeble than the others, needed and received 
especial attention. Him I tended through dreary 
days of east-wind and rain in a box on the mantel- 
piece, nursing him through a severe attack of 
asthma, feeding and amusing him through his 



60 SUMMER REST. 

protracted convalescence, holding liim in my hand 
one whole Sunday afternoon to relieve him of 
home-sickness and hen-sickness, and being re- 
warded at last by seeing animation and activity 
come back to his poor sickly little body. He will 
never be a robust chicken. He seems to have a 
permanent distortion of the spine, and his crop is 
one-sided ; and if there is any such thing as blmd 
staggers, he has them. Besides, he has a strong 
and increasing tendency not to grow. This, how- 
ever, I reckon a beauty rather than a blemish. 
It is the one fatal defect in chickens that they 
grow. With them, youth and beauty are truly 
inseparable terms. The better they are, the worse 
they look. After they are three weeks old, every 
day detracts from their comeliness. They lose their 
plump roundness, their fascinating soft down, and 
put out the most ridiculous little wings and tails 
and hard-looking feathers, and are no longer dear, 
tender chicks, but small hens, — a very uninterest- 
ing Young America. It is said, that, if you give 
chickens rum, they will not grow, but retain always 
their juvenile size and appearance. Under our 
present laws it is somewhat difficult, I suppose, 
to obtain rum, and I fear it would be still more 
difficult to administer it. I have concluded instead 
to keep some hen sitting through the summer, and 
so have a regular succession of young chickens. 
The growth of my little patient was not arrested 
at a sufficiently early stage to secure his perpetual 



A PROSE HENRI ADE. 61 

good looks, and, as I intimated, he will never, 
probably, be the Windship of his race ; but he has 
found his appetite, he is free from acute disease, 
he runs about with the rest, under-sized, but 
bright, happy, and enterprising, and is therefore 
a wellspring of pleasure. Indeed, in view of the 
fact that I have unquestionably saved his life, we 
talk seriousl;^ of opening a Hotel des Invalides^ a 
kind of Chickens' Home, that the benefits which 
he has received may be extended to all his un- 
fortunate brethren who stand in need. 





LARVA LESSONS. 




BOUT this matter of June there Is a 

great deal to be said on both sides. 

June has a great reputation, — June, 

beloved of youth and maidens, — June, 

dear to poets. 

" What is so rare as a day in June ! 
Then if ever come perfect days," 

or something like that, sighs the knight of Laun- 
fals, and all June-lovers swell the chorus ; but 
June has another side to her shield that shines 
with a different and a less lustrous light. June 
roses have woven wreathes for many a lay, but I 
went out to my rose-bushes this morning, after a 
few days' absence, and behold ! havoc and ravage ; 
for delicate green leaves, only wiry skeletons, 
from w^hich life and loveliness had departed. Near 
the ground, to the brown, mottled stalk clung the 
cause, — a great gluttonous caterpillar, full to the 
brim of pulpy parenchyma, and dreaming his dull 
larvic dreams in stupid satisfaction. A whisking 
stick soon snapped him off into space ; but will my 



LARVA LESSONS. 63 

rose-buds be able to grow into full-blown beauty 
with lungs so frightfully diseased ? Over against 
the rose-bush stands a young apple-tree, faint and 
feeble with the repeated charges of a battalion 
of canker-worms. The other night a high wind 
blew, and the old elm-tree was depopulated ; at 
least, if one might judge from the population 
that suddenly appeared around it and beneath it. 
The canker-worms, flung off" by the wind, spun 
down from the window-frames, looped up the door- 
posts, spanned along the fences, tormenting us be- 
fore the time. They knew it, too. They felt in 
their gelatinous frames that their hour was not yet 
come ; so, instead of scooping out their little graves, 
they began a toilsome ''homeward bound!" up, 
up, up into the old elm-tree, if possible, but, at 
all events, up, by such slow, painful, intermittent 
lunges and loops, that one could but pity while 
he loathed. Rudely disturbed in their cradles, 
rudely ousted from their homes, they hang around, 
bewildered and disgusting, heart-sick and home- 
sick. Their meek brown ugliness looks up from 
every surface. We have lived on carbon and 
.nitrogen for several days; for no sooner was a 
window opened than a stray little fellow would 
look in, bow, throw forward his head, bring up 
his tail, and there he was ! They fringe the 
closed blinds, and speckle the gray door-stone. 
There is no comfort in church, because there is 
always a canker-worm on the woman in front of 



64 SUMMER REST. 

yon, just at the edge of her collar, balancing 
himself on his hind legs and gazing around wildly 
in doubt whether to set his fore and four hundred 
horrid feet down on her bare neck or some- 
where else, and while you are dreading what to 
do you feel one looping over your own wrist. 
Poor things ! it is to be hoped they do not know 
how disagreeable they are, but go on rearing their 
helpless little ones with serene self-complacence, 
unsuspecting that they are not the very pink of 
the universe. 

Their existence is a living monument of circular 
justice, an ever-recurring proof of the inevitable- 
ness of the laws of compensation. I walk past 
an orchard, shrivelled, red, drj^, dead, and mourn 
over the ruin, — juice and flavor and tang of 
luscious apples, sweetness of marmalade and jellies, 
homely hospitality of pan-dowdies and dumplings, 
all withered away, leaving only an arid waste. 
" Whence and wherefore comes this destroying 
army?" I sigh; and from the savans comes an- 
swer. Because ye have hewed down the forests 
which were their natural homes, the forests whose 
broad expanse gave them ample room and verge 
enough to increase and multiply ; the forests w^here- 
in they could feed without devouring, and flourish 
without destroying ; because, madder yet, ye have 
lifted up your hands against the birds ; for grudge 
of the few cherries which they took, taxes rather 
than booty, nay, even out of wanton and wicked 



LARVA LESSONS. 65 

lust of blood and fierce greed of taking life, ye 
have shot and snared the birds, your foresters, 
which kept the balance true, and insured the 
preservation of God's own game-laws, restraining 
increase and multiplication within natural and 
harmless limits." " Live and let live," I begin 
to think is the w^atchw^ord of creation. Nature 
evolves her myriads, but with such nice adjust- 
ments that interference mars her proportions, and 
creates fatal disturbance. We have all read how a 
new^ centre-table introduced discord and discontent 
into an old and formerly peaceful and harmonious 
room, so that time-honored furniture withdrew 
to attics, and finer reigned in its stead ; w^alls re- 
treated, ceilings soared, and the unhappy owner 
found no rest till an entirely new house squared 
itself around the new table, unconscious cause of 
all his w^oe. With just such exact dovetailing has 
Nature grouped her arrangements, and one dis- 
jointure makes the whole system rickety. We 
have felled the forests that should have fed the 
canker-worms, we have shot the birds that should 
have eaten them, and now they swarm in our 
gardens, and spin down before our faces, and we 
vex our souls in vain to mend our losses. Yonder 
goes a man in blue blouse and overalls, with a 
long hooked pole in his hand. Responsive to his 
soft, sonorous call, a troop of motherly ''biddies," 
proud young pullets, and even a few inexperienced 
chickens, cluck and scamper at his heels. What is 



66 SUMMER REST, 

the man going to do with the hooked pole, and 
why do the chickens run ? (if I may adopt the 
style which seems to be in vogue among the later 
novelists.) The man is going to hook his hook 
into the tree, and shake the limbs, and the poultry 
sees with prophetic eye a fat repast; with the 
first jar, and with each succeeding jar, the startled 
denizens of the apple-tree will come tumbling 
down into the very jaws of death. Seed-time of 
canker-worms is harvest-time of hens. Corn and 
moist meal and the loved potato-parings have lost 
their charms for the brood that loiters coop-ward 
with distended crops. Many will be the desolated 
homes on the green leaves to-night, and sweet the 
dreams of Dame Partlet on her peaceful perch, — 
not knowing that, like the suppression of the Re- 
bellion, " it is but a question of time," and the 
same solace that has been administered to her by 
her articulated sisters she shall one day administer 
to her vertebral kinsmen. 

But hens are not the only foes that lie in wait. 
Unclean beasts, — that noisome race into which 
the devils entered eighteen hundred years ago, and 
of which they have held possession ever since, — 
prey on these defenceless creatures. Horrid snouts 
root into the warm little caves, wherein the tender 
chrysalids lie, and bring inexorable fate. Or in 
their long spring journeys up the difficult bark, 
the virgins are submerged unawares in a boundless 
sea of oil, or mired in vast bogs of tar. Nay, 



LARVA LESSONS. 67 

human hate does not confine itself to human inge- 
nuity, but shamelessly has recourse to the very 
nature which it has outraged. 

" Call for the robin redbreast and the wren," 

despairing nurseryman. Hither lure the angry 
wasp that stores her cellars with vermes-steak, well 
salted down. Hither let the beetle wheel his 
droning flight, and hither come the winged epi- 
cures that regale themselves on omelets of canker- 
worm eggs. With all our appliances, surely there 
shall be none left to tell the tale. That which the 
unclean beasts have left the tar hath swallowed, 
and that which the tar hath left Jenny Wren 
hath eaten, and that which Jenny hath left Chanti- 
cleer hath devoured. But boast not thyself, O 
man. Though canker-worms be little upon the 
earth, they are exceeding wise. For all your 
tar and your poles, it shall go hard but in your 
teil-tree shall be left a tenth, — two or three in the 
top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the 
outmost fruitful branches thereof; and when you 
reflect that a single moth will lay a hundred eggs, 
you need not be surprised next year to feel a 
dozen or two swinging into your face as you walk 
to and fro in your orchard. 

There is a comforting tradition that canker- 
worms have a seven years' lease of life, and then 
die out. But do not set your heart and stake 
your property upon it. The damsel who remem- 
bers all along 



68 SUMMER REST, 

" From when she gambolled on the green, 
A baby-germ, till when 
The maiden blossoms of her teens 
Had numbered five from ten," 

and five more, has not outlived the dynasty of the 
canker-worms. Tliey come and go when and 
where they hst. Your trees are leafless and bar- 
ren, your neighbors' are green and fruitful ; and 
though in the multitude of words that are used to 
account for this there wanteth not wisdom, he that 
refraineth his lips is the wisest ; for the burden of 
the knowledge of the nineteenth century may be 
found in the book of the vision of Nahum the Elko- 
shite, written now these five and twenty centuries : 
" The canker-worm spoileth, and flieth away." 

There is also a tradition that caterpillars eat 
canker-worms, and so make themselves partially 
useful ; but they do not. They eat everj^thing 
else. It is as Joel says, '' That which the canker- 
worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten." Some 
one looking over my shoulder says the tradition 
is, not that they eat canker-worms, but eat them 
out^ — so destroy the herbage that there is nothing 
left for their smaller brethren. I question whether 
there is much truth in either report, except what 
hes in the radical fact, that they eat. They leave 
their nests among the birds in the morning, and 
crawl up and down seeking what they may devour. 
At noon they withdraw to their homes for a nap. 
Towards evening again they take their walks 



LARVA LESSONS. 69 

abroad, evidently, but very inconveniently, sharing 
mortal delight in the cool of the day. But they 
pay the penalty for presuming to mimic their 
betters. If they kept themselves dispersed like 
canker-worms, they might as easily elude capture ; 
but by spontaneous concentration they prepare the 
way for that difficult military operation known 
as " bagging." Lovely Lulu looks longingly from 
her lattice towards the green quiet of the country, 
and fancies June to be all roses and nightingales. 
But this noon a beautiful orchard, responsive to 
gentle solicitations, yielded up a bucketful of cater- 
pillars. Yes, Mr. Robert Browning, that is 

" V\rhat ^s in the blossom 
June wears in her bosom," 

I regret to be obliged to admit, — a bucketful of 
caterpillars ! And then Halicarnassus comes in 
gleefully, and says they have made a clean breast 
of it. There is n't a caterpillar left on the farm ! 
By way of comment, I point to one just rolling 
up the door-step. ''Yes," he says, winking very 
hard, '* that is one of the neighbors' caterpillars 
running over to make a call on ours." 

But there is small good in cleaning out your 
own borders unless the community make common 
cause with you. Why does not America, like 
France, pass a law constituting it a penal offence 
to harbor caterpillars ? 

One can hardly walk through the street without 
bringing home on his clothes enough to found a 



70 SUMMER REST, 

flourishing colony. You climb up a stone-wall, 
and barely save yourself from descending into 
half a dozen nests on the other side. They gather 
in squirming squads under the heads of the gate- 
posts, and creep, creep, creep, with slow persistence 
up the sides of the house. Last evening I found 
in the lane a shattered nest. The occupants had 
evidently been rudely torn from their home and 
greatly disturbed, — quite put out, in fact ; but they 
had rallied, organized their forces, drawn up in 
line, sent out scouts, stationed pickets, and were 
en route for the place where their Troy w^as. 
From the wheel-rut in the road to the grassy side- 
walk — more than a yard — they formed a solid 
column ; marching in a straight line at an acute 
angle with the road in a tolerably regular rank 
and file, from two to four abreast, with two active, 
energetic leaders, who were continually striking 
out right and left and returning to report. I 
passed that way again in about half an hour, to 
find them still moving. A wagon had gone by 
meanwhile, but there were no traces of disaster. 
Their bodies were scarcely half-grown, but the 
emergency seemed to have ripened their souls 
prematurely. 

The other day there might have been seen a 
caterpillar coming down the gravel- walk in a 
ludicrously eager hurry. He was a singular look- 
ing creature, — much more elaborately finished off 
than the rest of his kind, for his tail tapered and 



LARVA LESSONS. 71 

terminated in a curious black bead. He made 
such an impression on me, that after I had reached 
the house I turned back again to examine him. 
Minute investigation resolved the black bead into 
a terrible little vixen of a huge black ant that had 
fastened upon him and was putting him to the 
torture. The caterpillar would plunge ahead a 
few wriggles, — which I take to be Caterpillaree 
for paces, — dragging the ant with him. Then 
losing patience, he would halt, double himself 
back into an O, and butt off the ant. The latter 
would make a side-leap and keep away till the cater- 
pillar started, then fasten upon his side, perhaps, 
and away they would go again. Then would come 
another halt, another hit, another leap, grapple, 
race. The energy of that ant cannot be de- 
scribed or surpassed. He evidently knew no such 
Avord as fail. Thrust aside, he would take breath, 
push up his wristbands, — in a figure, — and begin 
af^h. He had all the persistency that belongs 
to a fight and all the agility that belongs to a frolic. 
The caterpillar labored under the same disadvan- 
tages that attended our commerce in its conflict 
with the late Rebel navy : he presented a broad 
frontier for attack, and had but small opportunity 
for reprisals. I followed in their wake till they 
disappeared beneath a rose-bush. Do you think 
I ought to have separated them ? How do I 
know which was to blame? Perhaps the cater- 
pillar had mobbed the ant's house or murdered 



72 SUMMER REST, 

all his brood at one fell swoop, and was only- 
reaping his meet reward. A little power does not 
generally attack a large power without extreme 
provocation ; and Nature must adjudicate in her 
own courts. Besides, I have heard that there is 
a natural hostility between black ants and cater- 
pillars, and that you can at any time have all the 
excitement and pleasure of a bull-fight by offering 
them to each other. 

Caterpillars are a melancholy race. They have 
no vivacity, no song, no sport, no seeming interest 
in anything but some mysterious, far-off errand. 
They lie about hopeless and heavy ; nor, indeed, 
can it w^ell be otherwise, if they eat, as is asserted, 
and as the poor rose-bushes and apple-trees seem 
to indicate, seven hundred times their own weight 
in a day. Spiders, loathsome though they be, 
are ever on the alert ; but caterpillars hang to the 
posts or squirm aimlessly about each other till 
they have arrived at maturity, and then, with con- 
stant restlessness, they creep, creep, creep slowly 
to their graves. Nobody sees what becomes of 
them ; only you notice a belated and bewildered 
wayfarer wandering about like one who treads 
alone some banquet-hall deserted, or a brilliant 
black and red creature, large enough for a child's 
muff, hurrying in great waves across the road ; 
then you wake suddenly to the fact that the 
caterpillars are gone. 

We have speculated much this summer, and 



LARVA LESSONS. • 73 

about caterpillars as well as other things. Hali- 
carnassus is disposed to take a desponding view 
of the matter. " What right or reason have 
we," he asks, " to endow ourselves with an im- 
mortahty which we deny to them ? They are to 
us a disagreeable incident, which we quietly put 
out of the way as fast as possible ; regarding only 
our own convenience, and often only our own feel- 
ings, and not at all their pleasure or profit. Why 
may it not be that we hold to a higher race of 
beings the same relation which this holds to us ? 
Why may it not be that our lives are relatively 
as transient and unimportant, and that we perish 
as entirely and as unregarded ? " 

" Well," I answer, '' I don't know why, only 
we don't." 

'' But are you so sure of that ? As far as we 
see, man goeth to the grave, and where is he ? " 

I. But he goes to his grave by the law of his 
own nature. He dies or is killed by his kind. 
He is not brought into contact with any higher 
race, and the caterpillar is. His higher race is 
close about him. He sees it and feels it. Our 
higher race, if we have any, is invisible and im- 
palpable. It never gives any sign, and I don't 
believe in you (defiantly, in case any of them 
should happen to be within hearing). 

jET. Very just reasoning; yet if that group of 
caterpillars yonder should happen to be a debating- 
society, in which two philosophers like us are dis- 



74 • SUMMER REST. 

cussing the question of a higher race, they use, 
unquestionably, the same arguments which you 
have advanced, and will an^ive at just as decided a 
negative. 

I. You mean that they do not see us nor hear 
us? 

JEC. They do not see us as us. To them we are 
only obstacle, danger,* accident, not beings. 

I. Very true. When I crush an insect under 
my foot, I suppose he does not suspect it is the 
foot of his superior that crushed him. 

H, Certainly not. He wall always think he 
died in a fit. 

/. When we kill them by the bucketful, they 
do not know it is '' we " or a " bucket." 

ff. No, they probably call it an earthquake, an 
avalanche, the operation of natural laws. And 
when the French soldiers were writhing in Victor 
Hugo's pit at Waterloo, they called it a pit, and 
not a higher power. 

Z But they knew they rushed in, and the 
caterpillars must have known, if they knew any- 
thing, that they did not w^alk into that bucket by 
any will of their own, even if they did not per- 
ceive the existence of any higher will. 

JT. Some higher power may have acted on our 
circumstances just as directly, if not just as per- 
ceptibly, as we act on a caterpillar's. Perhaps, 
when we grope out among the stars, or feel down 
into the earth after the fossils and the fire and all 



LARVA LESSONS. 75 

the old time's secrets, we crawl into their domain 
just as obnoxiously as the caterpillars do into 
ours, and so they contrive ways to rid themselves 
of us. 

I. But we have faculties, feelings, thoughts, en- 
tirely above and beyond them. They have not 
even the germ of what we have in full flower, 
and there is no analogy between us. We are an 
entirely distinct race, and you cannot reason from 
them to us. 

ff. So is the dog and so is the cat an entirely dis- 
tinct race from the caterpillar ; they have thoughts 
and feelings which the most cultivated and highly 
developed caterpillar never attained to. Yet their 
great sagacity does not immortalize them. 

I, But they have no intellect, no conscience. 

S^. Pardon me, I think we have evidence of 
both. They reason, and they distinguish right from 
wrong. When Rory is sleeping on the kitchen 
mat before the fire, she does not stir for your 
approach ; she only raises her head sleepily, or 
perhaps puts up her nose for a caress. But when 
she has surreptitiously crept up stairs and bestowed 
herself on the best bed to take her after-dinner 
nap, no sooner does she hear an approaching foot- 
step than she leaps off and scuds down the back 
stairs. There, it seems to me, you have memory, 
conscience, reasoning, and prudent action ; and * 
often dogs and cats show these and other high 
human qualities in far more intricate forms. 



76 SUMMER REST. 

I. Yes, but their reasoning never goes beyond a 
certain limit. It is confined to concrete personal 
matters. They never reason on abstractions, and 
even their conscience is, I apprehend, a purely 
physical one. They have no notion of right as 
right. They know that such a thing is followed 
by punishment and such a thing by caresses. 
That is all. 

J?. And that is all a small child knows. He 
distinguishes right from wrong, but has no con- 
ception of right or of God, while in point of 
intellect he is far beneath the dog. 

I. But he is susceptible of unlimited cultivation, 
while no dog was ever educated into a knowledge 
of holiness or of mathematics. 

£r. Certainly there is a difference in degree, but 
it still remains that you have in the do'g the germs 
of his master'g qualities. Now the point is, why 
do we affirm that those beings in whom the germ 
exists must die, while those in whom it is a little 
more developed shall live ? What element of life 
exists in a quart of intellect that does not inhere 
in a thimbleful ? If the cultivation of faculties 
is the crucial test, many a man will be in evil 
case as compared with his dog. With a capacity 
of becoming godlike, he d(5es meaner things than 
even his dog can do. His dog is faithful to his 
bad master; his master is faithless to his good 
wife and his innocent children. The dog lives 
an honest and enlightened dog life. The man 



LARVA LESSONS. 77 

perverts his powers to brutal and worse than 
brutal uses. Why is he to be permitted to live 
forever, — a blot upon creation, — - while the high- 
hearted dog must go back to darkness and dust ? 

/. Yet Dr. Kane, who must certainly have seen 
very low if not the lowest types of human kind 
and some of the highest types of animal, said he 
considered the lowest man higher than the highest 
brute. 

IT. We should need to inquire what precisely 
he meant by "low" and "high." 

/. My dear, this is all nonsense. You know 
perfectly well that there is an essential difference 
between brute^nd man ; and that this — whatever 
you call it, — ^ul, spirit, heart, — this in which the 
essential difference consists, — is indestructible. 

IT. How do I know it ? 

/. You know it from the Bible. 

II. Where does the Bible say so ? 

/. I do not know that there is any one verse 
w^here it is said in so many words ; but the whole 
Bible goes upon the assumption that the soul is 
immortal. / The incarnation of Christ is presump- 
tive evidence of it. The means would be dis- 
proportionate to the end, if the Son of God had 
died to redeem creatures whose lives were t^ 
stretch over but a few years, — a mere point of 
time compared wuth the boundless eternity. 

II, Pardon me again, but you are speaking from 
the midst of confusion. You are mixing up theo- 



78 SUMMER REST. 

ries which are entirely separate. You say, first, 
that man and beast are essentially different, and 
therefore man is immortal. I dispute your major 
premise. Man may have an element of character 
or of nature, if you will, entirely distinct from, 
and indisputably higher than, the animal ; but it 
need not, for that reason, be immortal. What the 
essence of immortality is, what that quality is 
whose very existence is its guaranty of eternity, 
I do not know. I certainly do not see any reason 
for supposing that humanity, which in its naked 
infancy is visibly but earthiness^ is that quality. 
If the Bible should, as you think, give us God's 
word for it, that would be enough. But, so far 
from assuming any such thing, it sefems to me to 
assume quite the contrary. The Bible continually 
represents the soul, not as inherently, but only as 
contingently immortal. Eternal life is not spoken 
of as an inheritance, but as a boon. " By grace are 
ye s^ved through faith, and that not of yourselves : 
it is the gift of God." Immortality is something 
to be sought after, and that which is to be sought 
is not a thing which we should have in any case. 
''To them who by patient continuance in well 
doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, 
eternal life." 

L But in the converse, it does not promise to 
the bad eternal death, but ''indignation and wrath," 
tribulation and anguish. 

H, It does not, however, deny eternal death ; 



LARVA LESSONS, 79 

and you must distinguish between a non-asser- 
tion and a denial. God's indignation and wrath, 
man's tribulation and anguish, are not incom- 
patible with final death. Rather, we might sup- 
pose death must result from them. At any rate, 
the Bible predicates immortality of God alone. 
^' Who only hath immortality." Now, supposing 
man to have been originally made capable of 
living forever, but by some sin to have forfeited 
this ability, w^ould it not be a most divine work, 
one worthy of the 

" Strong Son of God, immortal Love," 

to devise a scheme by which this forfeited life 
might be restored ? Does it seem a little thing for 
millions of beings, with so great capacities, to be 
rescued from nothingness and redeemed to bright 
and ever-brightening life, becoming more and more 
like Him, and enjoying Him and themselves for- 
ever? I rather think, if it was a glorious thing 
for God to make the world, it was a far more 
glorious, as it was a far more difficult, thing for 
Him thus to make it over. 

/. Yet the belief in immortality is universal. 
Not only the educated and the religious, but the 
low and vile, savages and barbarians, to whom the 
Gospel has never been offered, who, certainly, ac- 
cording to your theory, must have forfeited their 
immortality for their own selves, even if Adam 
had never done it for them, and who have never 



80 SUMMER REST. 

so much as heard that there is a chance for its 
recovery, and who therefore ought to know noth- 
ing about it, — even they have their theory of a 
future life. No nation or tribe has ever been 
found, I have read, so degraded as not to have 
some notion, however gross, of a God and of im- 
mortahty ; and this instinct of immortality is, I 
should surely think, a premonition of immortality. 
And besides this inborn instinct you have the 
creeds of all Pagandom and all Christendom. It 
is impossible that a belief so wide-spread should 
be utterly baseless. 

H, I do not know which will be the strongest 
answer, — to deny your facts or to account for 
them. You may have your choice. 

I. I will have both, first one and then the other. 

H, First, then, I will deny them, and declare 
that the belief in immortality, so far from being 
universal, is rare. Even at the present time our 
own people hardly believe in it, let alone the old 
Pagans. Religious persons think it is wicked to 
talk of a future state out of meeting. Speak of 
heaven as a place where there is real life, actual 
talking and walking and working and playing 
and planning and laughing and loving, and they 
are shocked, and think you irreverent. In a fu- 
ture solemn, pale, passionless dream they believe, 
perhaps, but not in a future life. For a life with- 
out functions is no life. If you have not the same 
capacities in another world that you have in 'this, 



LARVA LESSONS. 81 

you are not the same being, and if you are not 
the same being, it is not a resurrection that has 
occurred, but a new creation. Most of the persons 
whom you and I know do not entertain a beKef 
in heaven or hell sufficiently vivid to influence 
materially or apparently their dealings with their 
fellow-men. 

I. There I think you cannot judge. You only 
see how people live. You do not know how they 
would live if they had no such belief. You might 
say people do not believe in law, because there is 
so much thieving ; but if they believed there were 
no law, there would be nothing but thieving. 

IT. Your case is not quite parallel, but it can 
easily be made so, and it will at once turn against 
you. The point on which a thief is doubtful is, 
not the existence of law, but the possibility of 
eluding the law\ The point on which the world is 
doubtful is, not the possibility of eluding unending 
wretchedness, but its existence. All agree that 
if it is, there is no escape for him who is doomed 
to it. If a thief should avow that he believed 
there was no escaping the law, and yet after a 
theft he should seek to escape it, we should at 
once infer that he believed it might be escaped. 
So when men say they believe there is a future 
life, yet act as if there were none, shall we not 
believe their acts rather than their words ? The 
price of gold is a much better national barom- 
eter than fine theorizing about prosperity. And 

4* F 



82 SUMMER REST. 

if we who have lived under centuries of the 
Church doctrine of mevitable immortality have so 
faint a belief in it, I question whether it is so 
deep-seated or so wide-spread in Pagandom as is 
generally supposed. The old poets, indeed, de- 
scribe a posthumous life with great minuteness ; 
but undoubtedly they intended it should be re- 
ceived as a work of imagination, not a narrative 
of fact. Milton would not wish his account of 
Pandemonium or the battles in Heaven to be 
taken as parts of his creed, nor did Virgil intend 
Octavia to receive the account of Marcellus as a 
truthful narrative. When the Greek and Latin 
poets express their own actual, e very-day belief, 
it is chilling and uncomfortable to the last degree. 
And even their poetical conceptions were scarcely 
attractive. Their future life was but the ghost 
of life, — viewless shades, realms of night, unsub- 
stantial all. It was 

" Death, and great darkness after death/' 

All that Patroclus's sad shade could ask of Achilles 
was proper burial, that he might pass through the 
gloomy gates of Hades. Nothing is more touch- 
ing than the calm, hopeless bravery of the ancient 
men, looking upon death as the end of all, yet 
cheering each other on to meet it as brave men 
should. It was according to nature ; it was in- 
evitable. To fear it was unmanly; and so they 
gathered their mantles around them, and slept the 



LAEVA LESSONS. 83 

iron sleep. But there was no joy, no hope, no 
anticipation. 

" "Aira^ SavovTOS ovtls iorr avdaracnS'^* 

The sole consolation that Horace could bring 
to Maecenas was, not a prospect of future re- 
union, but that the same day should bring death 
to both, — ruinam^. how meaning a term ! and 
all beyond the tomb were but fahulce manes. 
Cicero was to find comfort for Tulha's death in 
remembering that there were no youths in Rome 
worthy of being her husband. Christ seems never 
so bright and blessed as when he brings hfe and 
immortality to light through his Gospel, — brings 
the warm sun of heaven for the ghostly, ghastly 
twilight of these old sepulchral worlds. The best 
and wisest among the ancients seem never to have 
got beyond a perhaps, 

I. Plato had arrived at the doctrine of im- 
mortality. 

H, Plato reasoned out a doctrine — 

I. We have good authority for saying that he 
reasoned well. 

H. Poetical, not logical authority. Because the 
soul does not depend upon the body, he inferred 
that it could exist without the body, — which it 
may do abundantly, and yet not be immortal. But 
he assumed that it held within itself the principle 
of life, — a groundless assumption, though a wise 
man made it. For no man knows what the prin- 
ciple of life is. 



84 SUMMER REST, 

L Still, death is the greatest shock that we 
know of; and if death does not destroy the soul, 
if, as you admit, the soul is independent of the 
body, how do you know that Plato w^as not right 
in predicating of it immortality? If it survive 
death, why may it not survive anything ? If it 
live after that, why may it not live forever ? 

H. Plato ivas ri<>:ht in reasoning; thus from what 
he knew. I should be wrong, because I have light 
that Plato never had. Plato saw only by his 
inward light. I have the word of God, saying 
the soul that sinneth, it shall die. There is 
another hero of the old world, Marcus Aurelius, 
the noblest Roman of them all ; yet he can only 
say " about death : whether it is a dispersion, or a 
resolution into atoms, or annihilation, it is either 
extinction or change," and, at best, his change is 
only every part of him being reduced into some 
part of the universe, and that again changing into 
another part of the universe, and so on forever. 
And when his great heart stoops to take in some 
"vulgar comfort" for the dread doom, it is not 
in considering the goodness of those he is going 
to meet, but the badness of those he is to leave. 
Do you find here any such belief in immortality 
as you can well build a system on ? And these, 
you must recollect, are the high-water marks. 
These are the opinions of the foremost men of 
all their time. Where, then, will you be likely to 
find the rank and file? 



LARVA LESSONS, 85 

I. In Valhall and Vingolfa I should be sure to 
find them. 

II. Sippmg mead, not to say blood, from the 
skulls of the foes they had slain in battle. 

I, Still, inadequate, gross, grotesque, and horri- 
ble as these conceptions are, you have under them 
all the one idea of future unending life. 

H, But so distorted as to be a mockery, a humil- 
iation, a sorrow, — apart from the fact that we do 
not know how firm or broad a hold it had upon 
the common people. But see now, we all admit 
that man is capable of being made immortal, and 
that without any organic change. Christ only re- 
deems from sin ; he does not make an angel. Man, 
then, must have been originally adapted to immor- 
tality. He sinned, and thereby forfeited it. But 
is it strange that the tradition of his lost estate 
still clings to him, the ghost of his forfeited im- 
mortality haunts him, — no longer an angel to 
comfort, but a demon to vex? Is not this phan- 
tom of immortality which has always flitted around 
the grave, — at best a cold, shadowy, eluding 
shape, a horror, and never a hope, — is it not just 
such a phantom as we might suppose man's dis- 
ordered brain would evoke ? It was the Devil 
who first taught man the doctrine of his immor- 
tality, and that in God's despite. " Ye shall not 
surely die." Satan tempting and man tempted 
put their heads together, and Hades and Valhall, 
the transmigration of souls, haunted houses and 



86 SUMMER REST. 

churchyard wraiths, are the pleasant fruits of their 
copartnership. 

L But does it not seem something hke a waste 
to have so many souls made and so few come to 
anything? 

H. Apparently that is the Divine, way. A thou- 
sand seeds are formed for one that fructifies. De- 
struction walks hand in hand with production. 
Besides, is it any more a waste for souls to die 
out than it is for them to live in ever-increasing 
and hopeless wretchedness ? Here I think the 
old Pagans had the advantage of us. Their belief 
was more cheerful than ours. Their future exist- 
ence was indeed only 2i perhaps; but future misery 
was involved in the uncertainty of this perhaps^ 
for which we Orthodox have substituted — for the 
greater part of the world — a fearful certainty. 

I. But we do not impose it upon the world ; 
we open wide to all the gates of Heaven. 

jET. Knowing that the greater part will never 
enter. What inroads does the Church make upon 
the World ? How much larger a part of the popu- 
lation of the earth is Christianized now than was 
Christianized ten, twenty, thirty years ago ? And 
how much more is the Christianized part spirit- 
ualized? Remember, the point is not now by 
whose fault men are reduced to eternal misery, 
but the fact of their being so reduced. And I 
maintain that the pagan no-faith here left life 
more comfortable than our faith. The pagans, 



LARVA LESSONS. • 87 

moreover, fell back on nature. They reasoned 
that death was natural, and therefore ought not to 
be dreaded ; and that whatever should come after 
it would be natural, and need give them no concern. 
They trusted the unknown God. There is some- 
thing touching, sometimes almost sublime, in this 
sturdy if rather blind reliance, — this tenacious 
clinging to the best they knew or could devise. 

I. Yet Orthodox society is very cheerful and 
often merry, and in its religious life and aspiration 
not seldom exultant, while nothing can be more sad 
than ''heathenesse," if we may judge from certain 
signs, — ''Atalanta in Calydon," for instance: — 

" Thy limbs to the leaf, 
Thy face to the flower, 
Thy blood to the water, thy soul to the gods who divide and 
devour." 

And Marcus Aurelius you confess yourself has an 
" o'ermastering sadness." 

IT. Atalanta is neither here nor there, — being 
but a modern's imagination of the ancient, — if it 
were not far too tragic to be a representation of 
the ordinary mood of the Greeks. Nor am I say- 
ing that the ancient was less cheerful than the 
modern, but that ancient orthodoxy as a faith was 
less terrible than modern orthodoxy. Believers 
in the latter are happy, just as far as we do not 
believe or do not comprehend our creed, — which 
gives a large enough margin for the exigencies of 
ordinary society. 



88 ■ SUMMER REST, 

1. Do you mean to say that we are hypocrites ? 

H, Not at all. Undoubtedly we think we be- 
lieve. Undoubtedly some do believe it, and the 
joy of life has died out of them. But the great 
majority believe only on the outmost thin sur- 
face of their minds, with the merest hem of their 
soul's garments, — believe so slightly that it scarcely 
colors their thoughts, not to say influences their 
life. 

/. Your positions seem to have some force, but 
probably it is only phenomenal. It is but an 
inglorious victory you can get over me ; say 
these things to a minister, or some one who knows 
a great deal, and I dare say your argument would 
be torn into shreds. 

jET. I dare say. 

L Tell me, now, honestly as a man, and not 
cautiously as a controversialist, do you believe this 
doctrine yourself? When you began, I thought 
you were only arguing as a gymnast, — just to 
show how much might be said on the side of an 
absurdity, but you seem to be quite serious. 

H. I am quite serious, though I do not say that I 
believe the doctrine for which I have been arguing. 
But, on the other hand, neither do I disbelieve it. 
I will say this for it, that it offers the most satisfac- 
tory solution of the great problem that I have ever 
yet seen. It is the easiest way out of the diffi- 
culty. It shows how God may be just to the 
souls he has made, and yet it does not attempt to 



LARVA LESSONS. 89 

wash away the sins of the world with rose-water. 
It seems to me a doctrine perfectly natural and 
reasonable. It is at one with God's judgments as 
we see them executed. It only carries on into 
another world the same laws which we see operat- 
ing in this. The tendency of sin is to destroy 
the sinner. Vice is suicidal. Evil is fate. Crime 
pulls down the whole man. It is not the intellect, 
nor the physical strength, but the character, which 
is the man. It is the spiritual nature which is to 
stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and it is 
this spiritual nature which sin wars against and plots 
against, and perpetually and insidiously destroys. 
Immortality ! Why, how many people one con- 
stantly sees, concerning whom the wonder is, not 
that they should finally perish, but that they should 
have been suffered to live at all. Have you not 
met persons who seemed to be mere chemical 
compounds ? There is no individuality in them, 
no strong flavor of a soul. When their chemistry 
fails, they disappear. Take away the salts and 
gases, and there is nothing left. Their souls are 
but nebulaa, — a fine spiritual film, which at 
death one imagines must simply exhale. There 
are others, more pronounced, but with so pungent 
an earth-smell that we must conclude they are 
not yet developed out of the gnome-state into 
full manhood. What use they subserve, what 
glory they bring to their Maker beyond the beasts 
of the field, it is difiicult to see. They are mere 



90 SUMMER REST, 

earth-worms. All their thoughts, hopes, plans, are 
confined to the earth, — very often to one little cor- 
ner in the earth. Shrewdness they may have, 
and industry and all the earthly virtues. Perhaps 
they grow rich ; perhaps they become known ; but 
of the qualities that do not pertain to earth, of 
those which raise the soul into a similitude of its 
Maker, they have no more, to all appearance, at 
life's end than at its beginning. Now, if a man 
lives seventy years without having made a start 
in godliness, what reason is thereto suppose he 
will make a start in seventy-thousand years ? 
And if a man is good for nothing in this world 
but to convert grain into tissue, what is there for 
him to do in a world in which is neither grain nor 
tissue ? Why should they live again ? It would 
seem to be more economical to make new beings 
than to make these over. I see much more rea- 
son for the resurrection of a sagacious and faith- 
ful dog than for that of his foolish and faithless 
master. 

I, If he could rise no longer foolish and faith- 
less, but wise and loyal to God and man, that 
would be a justification. 

S, But I see no ground for hoping that, either 
in reason or revelation. When a man has resisted 
all the promptings to good which this world ofifers 
him, I do not know that there is a prospect of his 
yielding to any promptings to good. If Christ's 
sacrifice does not move him, nothing will, to my 
thinking. 



LARVA LESSONS. 91 

L But the poor people who know nothing about 
Christ's sacrifice ? 

JB[. We can very safely leave them in the hands 
of their Maker. 

I, It seems to me we are getting into deep 
waters. 

H. That supposition is creditable to your pene- 
tration, for we are, and should speedily be — if we 
are not already — beyond our depth. So we may 
as well make for dry land again ; but you cannot 
fail to see that this doctrine of eternal death mar- 
shals on its side arguments enough, both from na- 
ture and the Bible, to give it an honorable claim 
on every man's respect. One may not feel called 
upon to investigate it, but only ignorance or bigotry 
can revile it. 

I. Now how strange it is ! The caterpillars led 
us into all this talk of death, and yet the butterfly, 
Psyche, has been the symbol of immortality for 
thousands of years. 

IT, My dear, are you tired? 

J. Tired of what ? 

ff, O, walking, for instance. 

I. Not that I know of. Why should I be ? 

IT. Perhaps you would not mind running into 
the house and bringing me Whately's Bacon. I 
had it yesterday, and you will find it lying about 
somewhere. 

As I was curious to know what he had in mind, 
I brought the book, and he read the following 



92 SUMMER REST. 

extract from Whately's annotations to the essay 
'' On Death." 

" Most persons know that every butterfly (the 
Greek name for which, it is remarkable, is the 
same that signifies also the Soul^ — Psyche) comes 
from a grub or caterpillar ; in the language of 
naturalists, called a larva. The last name (which 
signifies literally a mask) was introduced by Lin- 
naeus, because the caterpillar is a kind of outward 
covering, or disguise, of the future butterfly with- 
in. For it has been ascertained by curious micro- 
scopic examination, that a distinct butterfly, only 
undeveloped and not full grow^n, is contained 
within the body of the caterpillar ; that this latter 
has its own organs of digestion, respiration, &c., 
suitable to its larva-life, quite distinct from, and 
independent of, the future butterfly which it en- 
closes. When the proper period arrives, and the 
life of the insect, in this its first stage, is to close, 
it becomes what is called a pupa^ enclosed in a 
chrysalis or cocoon (often composed of silk ; as 
is that of the silkworm which supplies us that 
important article), and lies torpid for a time within 
this natural coffin, from which it issues, at the 
proper period, as a perfect butterfly. 

" But sometimes this process is marred. There 
is a numerous tribe of insects, well know^n to natu- 
ralists, called ichneumon flies, which in their larva 
state are parasitical ; that is, inhabit and feed on 
other larvae. The ichneumon fly, being provided 



LARVA LESSONS, 93 

with a long, sharp sting, which is, in fact, an ovi- 
positor (egg-layer), pierces with this the body of 
a caterpillar in several places, and deposits her 
eggs, which are there hatched, and feed, as grubs 
(larvse), on the inward parts of their victim. A 
most wonderful circumstance connected with this 
process is, that a caterpillar which has been thus 
attacked goes on feeding, and apparently thriving 
quite as well, during the whole of its larva-life, 
as those that have escaped. For, by a wonderful 
provision of instinct, the ichneumon grubs within 
do not injure any of the organs of the larva, but 
feed only on the future butterfly enclosed within 
it. And consequently it is hardly possible to 
distinguish a caterpillar which has these enemies 
within it from those that are untouched. But 
when the period arrives for the close of the larva 
life the difference appears. You may often ob- 
serve the common cabbage-caterpillars retiring, to 
undergo their change, into some sheltered spot, — 
such as the walls of a summer-house ; and some 
of them — those that have escaped the parasites — 
assuming the pupa state, from which they emerge 
butterflies. Of the unfortunate caterpillar that has 
been preyed upon nothing remains but an empty 
skin. The hidden butterfly has been secretly con- 
sumed. 

" Now is there not something analogous to this 
w^onderful phenomenon in the condition of some 
of our race ? May not a man have a kind of 



94 SUMMER REST. 

secret enemy within his own bosom, destroying 
his soul, Psyche^ though without interfering 
with his well-being during the present stage of his 
existence ; and whose presence may never be de- 
tected till the time arrives when the last great 
change should take place ? " 

I, That is very significant, but I have seen it 
quoted to enforce the doctrine of eternal woe. 

H. It might be quoted to enforce direct taxation, 
or universal suffrage, or the high prices of butter, 
or anything else with which it has nothing to do. 

L I wonder what the consequences would be, 
if a belief in annihilation were substituted for that 
of unending misery? 

H. I suppose you know that question is not 
relevant. 

L I know that it does not concern the truth of 
the doctrine, but I have a right to ask it as an 
independent question. I fancy the first impression 
would be, that a restraint had been removed and 
that sin would revel unchecked. 

H. Probably the impression would be a wrong 
one. It depends, of course, ultimately, upon the 
facts. If eternal life in suffering is the fate of the 
unrepentant, then we must suppose the preaching 
of that doctrine to be the most effectual. But as 
that is the very question at issue, we must judge 
from other considerations. There is this first to 
be taken into account, — that the human mind is 



LARVA LESSONS. 95 

unable to contain the doctrine of eternal woe. 
You may see a community where it has been 
preached from time immemorial, where the con- 
trary has never been preached, where everybody 
believes it ; and that community has no more re- 
ceived it as a part of its real faith than an infant 
of days. It lives in a state of soggy indifference 
to it. As the ancient drew calmness from nature, 
so the modern draws calmness from a certain 
dogged trust that he shall do as well as his neigh- 
bors. His belief in eternal torments produces no 
appreciable change in his life. He does not think 
himself a Christian, but believes he shall somehow 
get to heaven when the time comes. A congre- 
gation will listen to a sermon of the most solemn 
warning, one that points out with tenderness, with 
real power, and perhaps in a truly Christian spirit, 
the sure doom that awaits the sinner. There will 
not be a word of cavil, nor a thought of opposition. 
The congregation will be attentive and hushed, — 
and will go home in an hour's time as " chirp " as 
crickets, and look after their farms and merchan- 
dise, next day, as eagerly as if hell was not sup- 
posed to yawn before them. 

I, Yes, I remember such sermons when I was 
little, and they generally ended w^ith the terrible 
assurance that some one of us might die that 
very day. Nobody could tell who, but I always 
thought it might mean me, and was sadly scared. 
I remember how I used to watch the clock, and 



96 SUMMER REST. 

think every time it struck, " Well, I 'm not dead 
yet." Every hour I lasted over was so much 
clear gain, and I was always so glad to wake 
Monday morning and find I was alive after all 
As I found I never did die on these occasions, I 
rather got used to it after a while, and took it as a 
matter of course. 

JT. I suspect that is the general result of preach- 
ing righteousness through fear of death. But sup- 
pose any member of this congregation knew that 
his wife or his neighbor was, in the next house, 
burning in a fierce fire, yet never to be consumed, 
would he be able to eat his dinner and drive 
his team and be interested in prices ? Yet we 
profess to believe, and fancy we do believe, that 
a very large number of our kinsmen, neighbors or 
acquaintance are in this condition. Rev. Justin 
Doolittle, who ought to know, says that a few hun- 
dred individuals, actuated by the love of money, 
are annually doing very much more to demoralize 
and destroy the Chinese, than all the millions of 
Christian believers in Christendom, constrained by 
the love of Jesus, are doing to benefit and save 
them. A few gentlemen in New York make up 
a purse of a hundred thousand dollars for General 
Grant, and we hardly hear of it ; but all the Con- 
gregational Christians of the North, after beating 
the drum and blowing the trumpet for months, 
after appealing to all the power that lies in simul- 
taneous action and in the associations of a great 



LARVA LESSONS. 97 

historic day, can barely raise a hundred thousand 
dollars to build up the waste places of Zion in our 
own country. 

I. We do more than any other denomination, 
though. 

IT. That is not to the purpose. Notice what we 
do in connection with what we declare ourselves 
to believe, — how much of faith in eternal torment 
we show by the efforts we make to snatch the 
world from it. 

/. 0, we are so constituted that we cannot 
realize the idea. There would be no living if we 
could. 

II, That is just what I say. And the question 
is, then. Is that doctrine likely to be true, which 
is so dreadful as to be intolerable ? Is not the 
fact that the human mind instinctively, though 
unconsciously, rejects it, dulls its edge, gets over 
it or round it in some way, an indication, at least, 
that it is not the true doctrine ? How can that 
have a practical bearing on life which must be 
dismissed before life can be endured ? In human 
society it is well known that undue severity de- 
feats itself. If a too heavy penalty is affixed to 
a law, the jury fails to convict, and guilt and 
innocence go alike free. A moderate punishment, 
sure to bo inflicted, is far more efficacious in re- 
pressing crime than an immoderate one from 
which there is a probability of escape. So here 
the punishment is so overpowering that the mind 

5 Q 



98 SUMMER REST. 

is forced to reject it, and rejects along with it all 
punishment whatever. Add to this a something 
arbitrary and extrajudicial in the popular notion 
of future punishment and you have at once an 
explanation of its futility. But let men be taught, 
with a stern simplicity, that the laws which they 
see working around them and in them are eternal 
laws ; that if they live like beasts they shall die 
like beasts ; that where their treasure is their 
hearts are ; and if they set their hearts on things 
of time and sense only, time, sense, and heart will 
perish together, — and I think they would begin 
to reflect ; for love of life is strong, and loss of life 
a most bitter loss. 

L Yet if all this is true, how comes the popu- 
lar doctrine to have been the popular doctrine so 
long? Would God let the truth lie lost and error 
so prevail ? 

H, He let the good and gentle Queen Isabella, a 
lover of truth and of her country, crush the one 
and curse the other for centuries, with the yoke 
of the Inquisition. Why was the good and great 
Marcus Aurelius suffered to approach only to re- 
press that Christianity whose spirit was so in unison 
with his own, and of which he was so eminently 
fitted to be the apostle before the world ? 

L Matthew Arnold asks the same question. 

S. But does not answer it, I venture to say, for 
it cannot be answered. It concerns some princi- 
ple of the Divine economy which we have not yet 



LARVA LESSONS. 99 

discovered. All our attempts to explain it reveal 
the limits of our own powers, but cast no light on 
the unknown footsteps of God. In His name 
must be our final trust, — God the Good. 

J, Caterpillar, how little you know what a com- 
mentary you furnish on a great man's words. If 
you could but understand Latin now, what com- 
fort you might take, as you roll along, in repeating 
Cicero's dictum, — " Etenim omnes artes^^^ — what 
is the rest of it, "have as it were a common 
chain"? I recollect the sentiment, but forget the 
words. 

II. Quce ad humanitatem pertinent — a little far- 
fetched, still — habent quoddam commune vinculum-; 
et^ quasi cognatione quddam^ inter se continentur ; 
but you might have said it yourself, without calling 
up Cicero. 

I. It would not have sounded half so learned. 
Never say anything in Enghsh when you can say 
it in Latin. 

II. Or get anybody else to say it for you. 

I. I wonder where the caterpillars get their 

name? 

H. Cat for their fur, pillar for their shape, and 

er for euphony. 

I. Halicarnassus, one cannot easily decide wheth 

er your turn for exegesis or etymology is the more 

remarkable. If you are weighty in the one, you 

are brilliant in the other. 



FANCY FARMING 




WENT out one morning to build a 
barn. Not that I knew exactly how 
to build a barn, but I knew very well 
how to keep up a clatter till some 
one should come that did know, which amounts 
to the same thing. There was, indeed, already 
a barn on our plantation. It was there many 
years before we were. I ought to say, a part 
of it; for the barn is a conglomerate, — the far- 
ther end stretching far back into antiquity, and 
the hither end coming down to a period which is 
within the memory of men still living. Of course 
its ancient history is involved in obscurity; but 
as we read in the rocks somewhat of the earth's 
otherwise unwritten story, so in our barn are many 
marks which point out to the curious student the 
different eras of its creation. The main line of 
demarcation comes in the centre, and consists 
chiefly of a kind of bulge. That part of the front 
which dates back to the Lower Silurian epoch ran 
south-southwestj but at some time during the Drift 



FANCY FARMING. 101 

period it turned to the right about and drifted to 
the north-northeast. The result is a bold front, 
subtending an obtuse angle. People who have 
nothing else in the world to annoy them might 
afford to be annoyed by this departure from a 
right line ; but, unless one is reduced to such 
straits, he will do well to call it a bow-window, 
and be at rest, — which, indeed, it is, only the 
window is a little to the windward of the bow. 

Viewed in certain aspects, an old barn is far 
superior to a new one. If you build a new barn, 
you have no resources. It is all finished, and you 
know where you are. There is a place for every- 
thing, and everything in its place. There is no 
use in looking for anything. If it is not where 
it belongs, it will not be anywhere. An old barn, 
on the contrary, is a mine of wealth. It has 
nooks and corners full of rubbish waiting to be 
turned to all manner of beautiful use. Do you 
want a shingle, a board, a door, a window, a log, 
a screw, a wedge ? There are heaps and piles 
of them somewhere, if you do not mind cobwebs. 
The old barn has a sort of sympathy with you, 
welcomes you to secret recesses, and never snubs 
you with primness when you are at a pinch : not 
to mention the dove-cotes, and the martins' nests, 
and the mouse-holes, and the lurking-places loved 
of laying hens. 

I will tell you a very romantic story, too, about 
this old barn. Once, a great many years before 



102 SUMMER REST, 

any of us were born, there lived on this plantation 
a charming young princess, beloved by all who 
knew her. One day the king sent word that he 
was coming down to sup with her. But it so 
happened that on the day the king was to come 
to supper the princess and all her household were 
to be away on an excursion, which was called, in 
the somewhat homely language of that day, a 
" clam-bake." However, the princess concluded 
to go to the clam-bake, and come home in season 
to sit with the king at supper. So they cooked 
mightily beforehand ; for it was the fixed law 
of royal suppers in that day to have cream-toast, 
the cream flowing in rivers, cheese and jelly, 
pound-cake, and plum-cake, and cranberry-tart, 
and three kinds of pie, mince, apple, and squash, 
or die ! Whereat the people of other countries 
laughed; but they ate the suppers, for all that, 
— the starvelings, — and came again. So the 
pies were all made with elaborate scalloped 
edges, and the hoar-frost of the cake ; and all 
was set carefully away, awaiting the eventful 
hour, and the princess and her household went 
forth and locked the doors behind them. And 
when the time was fully come, the princess left 
the clam-bake, and waited by the roadside till 
the king came by, and then they both went 
together to the princess's house. And as they 
went up the steps to the house, the charming 
young princess, who never drank tea herself, said 



FANCY FARMING. 103 

seductively to the king, " Do you mind, if you 
don't have tea ? It is a great trouble every way, 
and the self-denial will do you good." And the 
king, lured into a wrong story by the music of 
her voice, suppressed a rising sigh, and said no, it 
was no matter. And then the princess unlocked 
the door, and essayed to go in ; but though the 
door was unlocked, it refused to open. And 
suddenly the unhappy princess bethought herself 
that she had locked the door upon the inside, 
and bolted it, and herself passed out through the 
postern -gate, of which her lord high- steward still 
held the key. So there they were. Then, 
troubled, they marched hither and thither around 
the house with stately and majestic step, trying 
every door and window, and finding every avenue 
of approach barricaded except the sink-nose, which 
Libby prisoners might try, intent on getting out, 
but not a constitutional monarch, however anxious 
to get in. As two mice, lurking near the full 
cheese-safe, prowl around the crevices, braving 
cold and darkness in the middle of the night ; 
safe on the shelf the cheese reposes, unmindful ; 
they, fierce and heedless with anger, rave against 
it out of reach and emit a squeal ; a rage for 
eating, collected from a long fast, and throats dry 
from curd, urge them on : not otherwise anger 
inflamed the king and princess surveying the walls, 
and anguish burned in their bones ; by what way 
they might obtain access ; in what manner they 



104 SUMMER REST, 

might dislodge the rations shut up in inaccessible 
places. Nequicquam ! They could only look at 
each other with a wild surmise, and then, un- 
friended, melancholy, slow, betake themselves to 
the rude shelter and frugal fare of the barn. 
Then the scene suddenly changed. The west- 
ering sun came serenely in. The dreamy mist 
of graceful cobwebs, festooning and fantastic, 
and many a tiny window all adust, softened his 
brilhancy to a dim, rehgious light. The brown 
old rafters shone, amber-hued, in that mellow 
glory. The rough floors were fretted gold. A 
hundred summer sunsets glowed in the yellow 
corn that lay massed in ridged and burnished 
splendor. Mounds of apples, ruddy and round, 
loaded the air with their rich fragrance. In- 
numerable clover-blossoms, succulent with evening 
dews and morning showers, impurpled in the dusky 
silence of June nights, and cut down with all their 
sweetness in them, treasured up their dense deli- 
ciousness for balm-breathed cows, but did not dis- 
dain to flood our human sphere wdth tides of 
pleasant perfume. Meeting and mingling with 
these dear home-scents came gales from far Spice 
Islands and Araby the Blest, breathing over wild 
Western seas, to be tangled in pungent grasses 
and freight with welcome burden our rustic gon- 
dolas. (I mean English hay and salt hay.) And 
there, soothed into exceeding peace by Nature's 
lullaby, borne into ethereal realms on her clouds 



FANCY FARMING. 105 

of unseen incense, all through the golden afternoon 
sat the king and princess, discoursing dreamily of 
the time 

" when men 
With angels may participate, and find 
No inconvenient date, nor too light fare ; 
And from these corporal nutriments perhaps 
Our bodies may at last turn all to spirit." 

While ever and anon a squat old hen or an elegant 
young rooster would hop up the steps and tread 
into the rooms, looking curiously at the unwonted 
sight, whereat the king would rise from his throne 
on an old cider-cask, and make a right royal 
speech, " Go to ! base intruder ! " — emphasizing 
his peroration by hurling an ear of corn at his 
visitors, which, as our wayward sisters were wont 
to say, when our generals had done them a par- 
ticularly bad turn, was just what they wanted. 
So the afternoon sang itself peacefully away ; only 
the princess was of an evil mind, and would mar 
the king's pleasure, when he was solacing himself 
with a remainder-biscuit brought in the princess's 
basket from the clam-bake, by saying, " Do you 
see that window ? There is the closet where the 
cake is kept. Just behind that clapboard stands 
the jar of jam. Two feet to the right, I should 
think, reposes a cranberry-tart, the crust flaky and 
fantastic as a January snow-wreath, the jelly rich 
and red as the curve of Fantasima's lip " ; and 
then the king would roll his eyes around at her 

5* 



106 SUMMER REST. 

in a fine frenzy, and gnaw his crust with a still 
more wrathful despair. And that is the end of 
my romance of the barn. 

Still, it must be confessed, an old barn is not 
without its disadvantages, which the impartial his- 
torian must not pass silently by. It shakes won- 
derfully in a high wind. You hardly dare drive 
a nail anywhere, for fear the whole edifice should 
rattle down over your head. We desired to set 
up in the loft one of Dr. Dio Lewis's jumping- 
machines ; but, upon minute investigation, Hali- 
carnassus said no, — with the first antic we should 
find ourselves in the barn-cellar. In short, an 
old barn, in an advanced stage of disintegration, 
must be treated as tenderly as a loveress. (There 
seems to be a movement now-a-days towards the 
introduction of feminine nouns ; so I venture to 
make my contribution.) 

When the seeds were to be sown, it became 
necessary to shut up the hens, — necessary, but 
difficult. I closed the door myself every night 
with unwearied assiduity, but bright and early 
every morning came the homely hens and the 
stately-stepping rooster, treading and pecking as 
innocently as if they had neyer suspected they 
were on forbidden ground. I instituted a search 
one day: and no wonder they got out! We 
might have barricaded the door to our heart's 
content, and they would have tossed their crests 
in scorn. For there, directly under their perch, 



FANCY FARMING, 107 

was a great hole in the side of the edifice. Hole 
do I say ? It was many holes run into one. Hole 
was the rule, and barn the exception. It was 
vacancy bounded by a rough, serrate-dentate coast 
of decayed boards. It is little to say chicken, 
— a condor might have contemplated imprison- 
ment there undismayed. Of course reparation 
must be made, or farewell, dream of early peas ! 
At the same time, the evil to be remedied was 
so overgrown, and a moiister evil to be disposed 
of is so much greater an undertaking than a mere 
new measure to be carried, that I think it no 
exaggeration, but at w^orst only what we classic 
wrriters call synecdoche, to say, as I did at the 
beginning of this paper, that I went out to build 
a barn. 

What brilliant success would have crowned he- 
roic effort, if knowledge had been, as the old copy- 
books used to say it was, power ! It was clear 
enough what needed to be done, and there was 
abundance of material to do it with, — plenty of 
boards, — a little rough, to be sure, — and plenty 
of nails, — a little rusty. But boards are so 
uncommonly heavy ! and a ladder affords a foot- 
ing at once so contracted and so uncertain ! and 
a hammer has such a will of its own, coming 
down with ill-timed fervor in the most unexpected 
places ! And when a board has been lifted and 
pulled by main force into position, it takes both 
hands to hold it there ; and then how are you 



108 SUMMER REST. 

going to drive in the nails to make it stay, I 
should like to know, especially with your ladder 
continually threatening a change of base ? I am 
confident, moreover, that our boards were made 
of mahogany, or some other impenetrable sub- 
stance ; for w^hen, by dexterous manipulation, by 
close crowding up against them, and holding them 
up with my elbows, I at length proceeded to strike 
an effective blow, do you think the nail went in ? 
Not in the least. It did everything else. It 
doubled up, it snapped short, it plunged about 
frantically whenever it was touched, to say noth- 
ino; of the not innumerous occasions on which the 
stroke aimed at its unprincipled head fell with 
crushing force — elsew^here. Then my strength 
would begin to fail, and the board would slowly, 
slowly slide away from me, till I let it go, and 
it dashed with a crash to the ground. 
Here, to use the language of the poet, — 

" A man I know, 
But shall not discover, 
Since ears are dull, 
And time discloses," 

was aroused to unwonted activity by the pounding, 
and sauntered out into the midst of the melee. I 
do not know how long he had been watching me ; 
for I was so absorbed in my architectural problem 
as to be dead to the outer world ; but into the 
recesses of my complications penetrated a sound 
which seemed very much like what the world's 



FANCY FARMING. 109 

people call a — a — a — snicker! I looked around, 
and there he was. Very sober, very blameless, 
having very much the air of being just arrived ; 
but could my ears deceive me ? Then up spake 
I, cheerily, '' O Halicarnassus, you are just in 
time to hold this board steady while I hammer 
it on," — as if I had that moment adjusted it for 
the first time. He took his stand under the 
ladder, and held on as I told him, with a beautiful 
docility. I did not hurry in selecting a nail ; for 
he was strong, and I thought it would do him 
good to be in an uncomfortable position a little 
while, particularly as I was not quite satisfied 
about the — half-suppressed, broken laugh (defini- 
tion of snicker given by " The Best"). 

Carpentry was far easier after this, yet pro- 
gress was not what you could call rapid. The 
ladder was short, and I had to reach up painfully ; 
but I should not mind my arms aching, I informed 
my apprentice, if it were not that all the splinters 
and dust and rubbish that my hammer struck from 
the old boards marched straight into my uplooking 
eyes. 

"You might keep your eyes shut," suggested 
he. 

''But then," I responded, "I could not see 
how to strike." 

"Never mind," said he, tenderly; "you would 
hit just as well." 

" Oh, that way madness lies ! " 



110 SUMMER REST, 

The upshot of it was, that he bestirred himself, 
and turned that barn into a marvel of art. It had 
been a barn : it became a villa. An immense 
wooden sarcophagus, — only nobody had ever been 
deposited in it, — perhaps it was a horse-trough in 
its day, — was set up " on end," and turned into a 
three-story house. Fresh, sweet-smelling hay was 
piled on each floor, and such attractive little nests 
were scooped out therein, that a hen of a domestic 
turn of mind would go there and lay, just for the 
fun of it, you might suppose. Then the porticos, 
and the sliding-doors, and the galleries, and the 
hospital, and the vistas, and the palisades, and the 
inner and outer courts, — every arrangement that 
heart of hen could wish, both for seclusion and for 
society, — why, those fowls might have dreamt 
they dwelt in marble halls every night of their 
lives, and not have been very far out of the way ! 
And the summer residences that he made for 
them, — little Gothic cottages built for a single 
family, with all the modern conveniences, and a 
good many more improvised on the spot, and with 
this signal advantage over similar structures at 
Newport and Nahant, — that you can take them 
under your arm, and carry them wherever you 
please. 

Before finally leaving my hen-coop, will a gen- 
erous public pardon me for recurring to the subject 
of crowing hens? It may possibly be remembered 
that a little while ago I hazarded a doubt as to 



FANCY FARMING. Ill 

the existence of any such lusus naturce. Since 
that time proof has accumulated upon me from 
different quarters that crowing hens do exist. 
But let it be noted, that the gist of my remarks 
was the inconsistency of the tyrant man. Now 
see whether an admission of the disputed fact re- 
lieves him from the guilt charged upon him. 
Observe once more the couplet, — 

" A whistling girl and a crowing hen 
Always come to some bad end," — 

a couplet which, I affirm without fear of contradic- 
tion, endeavors to affix a stigma upon the charac- 
ter of crowing hens ; for what sinister and ulterior 
purpose I scornfully refrain from designating. 
Fourteen crowing hens have reported themselves 
to me : one from Maine, two from New Hamp- 
shire, three from Massachusetts, one each from 
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and North 
Carolina, and four from Pennsylvania. Of these 
fourteen, — 

Number One is '^ Bobby, an excellent Biddy. 
Lays nice large eggs, and brings up her families 
well." 

Number Two, named Queen Mab. Always 
crows to the music of a sweet-voiced Steinway. 
Is in all other respects an amiable and exemplary 
hen. 

Number Three is a black hen, now three years 
old. Has laid eggs. 

Number Four crowed regularly every morning, 



112 SUMMER REST. 

when the cock didc When she was a httle over 
a year old, she and her seven babes were stolen 
from a wild-cherry-tree, where they went to bed, 
by a fox, who came up on an old log. 

Number Five crowed irregularly. Raised sev- 
eral broods of chicks. Lived to be four or five 
years old. 

Number Six crowed chiefly in the fall, when 
the young chicks were practising (no doubt to 
encourage them). Lived to the remarkable age 
of nine years, and was then decapitated. 

Number Seven raised a large brood of chickens. 
Their papa was killed at about the time for them 
to begin to crow, and one morning she flew up 
on the fence and crowed with all her might. Con- 
tinued it until they had learned, and then stopped. 
Was called Old Sam. Her end was the soup-pot. 

Number Eight, an old speckled hen. Took to 
crowing after a raid on the poultrj^-yard had de- 
prived it of every rooster. Crowed as well as 
anybody. 

Number Nine lived twenty-five years ago. Wit- 
ness has forgotten whether she ever did anything 
but crow. Had a wicked name, which I shall not 
give. 

Number Ten laid eggs. 

Number Eleven crowed repeatedly and often 
spunkily after the roosters had been killed, never 
while they were alive. 

Number Twelve crows sometimes in the pres- 



FANCY FARMING. 113 

ence of the rooster, chiefly when alone. Most 
ener2:etic in crowino;. 

Numbers Thirteen and Fourteen have simply 
the fact of their existence recorded. 

Now, mere proverb-mongers, bear in mind : 
In the whole country only fourteen well-defined 
crowing hens, — at the worst, not a very crying 
evil. 

Of the fourteen, only one is recorded as having 
come to a bad end, and that end had no connec- 
tion with the crowing, but occurred while she 
was engaged in the faithful discharge of her ma- 
ternal duties. 

Seven are reported as bearing an excellent do- 
mestic character, a blessing to the society which 
they adorned. Against the remaining seven not 
a syllable of reproach is breathed ; but if there 
had been any evil thing in them, who believes it 
would not have been learned and conned by rote 
and cast into our teeth? 

In the case of five, their crowing was not only 
innocent, but a pre-eminent virtue, a manly crown 
set upon every feminine excellence. 

Inconsistency ? It is a white and shining word 
for the black quality to which I applied it. 

Men, the indictment is quashed. You are 
ruled out of court. Take your couplet and de- 
part, giving thanks that you are not prosecuted 
for defamation of character. 

While the architect and the hens were thus 



114 SUMMER REST, 

revelling in the halls of the Montezumas, I turned 
my attention to the more modest purpose of pro- 
viding accommodations for the tomatoes. All our 
efforts in that line hitherto had been comparative 
failures. '' It is a good thing to take time by the 
forelock," I had remarked to a subordinate, as 
early, I should think, as February, perhaps Janu- 
ary, and begun planting a great many seeds in 
boxes, which were set in the sunshine under the 
kitchen windows. A great many shoots came up, 
and then a great many flocks and herds of little 
green things oozed out of them and began to 
creep over them, evidently with the design of 
eating them up. This would never do. I bor- 
rowed a bound volume of the old " New England 
Farmer," from a young New England farmer, — 
the worst thing in the world to do, let me say to 
all amateur farmers. Use every lawful means of 
perfecting yourself in your profession, but on no 
account touch an agricultural journal. They be- 
wilder an honest heart into despair. They show 
the importance and the feasibihty of so many 
things, every one of which is full of interest, 
profit, and pleasure, that you know not where to 
begin ; and instead of doing one thing, you dream 
of a dozen. I sent the " New England Farmer " 
home, and, according to advice, bought a handful 
of tobacco, put it on a shovel and set fire to it, 
and smoked the young shoots thoroughly, — as 
w^ell as the house and all that therein was. The 



FANCY FARMING. 115 

experiment succeeded perfectly. Any way, it 
killed the tomatoes. I am not so sure about their 
colonists, but I do not believe they long survived 
the destruction of their Arcadia. "It is just as 
well," I said, to encourage one whose spirits de- 
pend upon me. " It is, indeed, far better. There 
are many kind people in cities, who will sow the 
seeds, and tend the plants, and take all the 
trouble, and give us as many plants as we want, 
for fifty cents." Which, indeed, they did, — 
and I set the plants out duly in a square. But 
they are delicate, and need protection from un- 
timely summer frosts. Thriftless people put up 
stakes, bushes, and such hand-to-mouth contriv- 
ances, and perhaps throw an old apron or a frag- 
ment of a table-cloth over them. Practical, but 
prosaic people, cover them with pots and pans 
during their fragile infancy ; all of which makes 
an unsightly feature in a landscape. I built a 
conservatory. And here let me say to all my 
young friends who may design to devote them- 
selves to rural pursuits. Do not be narrowly con- 
tent with the utilities, nor count the hours spent 
upon the beautiful as time lost. For aught we 
know, the fields might be just as fruitful, if they 
put forth only a gray and dingy sedge. Instead 
of which, we have their green and velvet loveli- 
ness starred all over with violet and daisy and 
dandelion. A hen-house is no less serviceable 
because built in the Gothic style with suites of 



116 SUMMER REST. 

rooms. A rough, nomadic tent of poles and rags 
gives no surer protection to your tender herbs 
than the stately and beautiful conservatory. That 
is why I built a conservatory. The walls were 
of brick : there was a pile of bricks in a corner 
of the barn. The roof was of glass: there was 
a pile of superannuated windows, ditto, ditto. 
The edifice was not quite so firm as might be 
desired, owing to the fact of there being no 
underpinning nor cement ; nor did its sides not 
sometimes deviate from strictly right lines, as they 
w^ere obliged to yield to the undulations of the 
soil ; but it was at least classical, — brick and 
windows. The only serious trouble with it was, 
that one fine morning it ceased to be conservative 
at all, but became revolutionary to the last degree, 
— utterly subversive, in fact, of the existing order 
of things. Why, the calves got in over night 
and turned everything topsy-turvy. Their hoofs 
crushed in the walls and roof, and the walls and 
roof between them crushed the tomato-plants, so 
that architecture and horticulture were involved 
in a common ruin. We knew it was the calves, 
because their juvenile tracks were all about. Be- 
sides, there were the calves. It turned out to 
be of no account, for that proved to be a bad 
year for tomatoes, so we should have had none 
in any event, and were saved all the trouble of 
cultivating them, while the calves had a free 
frolic, poor things. To be sure, they have a fine 



FANCY FARMING. 117 

court-yard for exercise, a vestibule for noonday 
lounging, and snug quarters for sleep and shelter ; 
but as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be, 

" Fredome is a noble tiling ! 
Fredome mayss man to haiff liking : 
Fredome all solace to man giffis : 
He levys at ess, that frely levjs ! 
A noble calf may haifF nane ess, 
Na ellys nocht that may him pless, 
Gyff fredome failyhe : for fre liking 
Is yharnyt our all othir thing. 
Na he, that ay hass levyt fre, 
May nocht knaw weill the propyrte. 
The angyr, na the wrechyt dome. 
That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome. 
Bot gyff he had assayit it. 
Than all perquer he suld it wyt : 
And suld think fredome mar to pryss, 
Than all the gold in warld that is." 

And if these wayward children of the earth could 
find any way of escape from their gilded fetters, 
and wander out under the beautiful star-sown 
heavens into the wilderness of night to taste the 
sweets of liberty, and, if you please, of license, 
who can find it in his heart to blame them? 
Farmers ought not to restrict their thoughts to 
human motives. We should endeavor sometimes 
to look at things with the eyes of a cow, an ox, 
a chicken, and so learn to have more consideration 
for and sympathy with these younger brethren of 
ours, — these children of a common Father. The 
earth is theirs as truly, if not as thoroughly, as 



118 SUMMER REST. 

it is ours. The good God makes grass to grow 
for the cattle as well as herb for the service of 
man. All the beasts of the field are His. Un- 
doubtedly He enjoys the happiness of every lamb 
frisking on the hillside ; and not a bluebird 
flashes through the morning, not a swallow twit- 
ters on his spray, but the Creator smiles on its 
glistening beauty and listens lovingly to its song. 
"Doth God take care for oxen?" asks Paul; 
and looking into the Bible, as well as abroad over 
the fertile fields, we can but answer, Yes ; though 
Paul himself seems to incline to the negative, and 
to consider the command not to muzzle the ox 
when he treadeth out the corn as given altogether 
for our sakes. Partly for our sakes, no doubt, 
but partly also for the comfort of the toiling, 
patient oxen ; and so, probably, would Paul say, 
were the question fairly put to him from the 
bovine side. So, indeed, in effect he does say, 
when writing to Timothy with another end in 
view. Perhaps that " Original Greek," to whom 
commentators and expositors are so fond of ap- 
pealing in an emergency, may yet be found to 
help us out of our difficulty by proving, past a 
cavil, that no means yes. At any rate, the Bible 
shows that God does take care of all dumb, un- 
complaining lives, and all humble human crea- 
tures, — and shows it so conclusively, so minutely, 
and so practically, that we can hardly be said to 
need any supplementary revelation on that point, 



FANCY FARMING. 119 

though a reverend gentleman, evidently thinkinoc 
otherwise, has written what he modestly terms " a 
scripture" about Timid Tom and Old Gurdy, — 
very tender and touching, yet he will pardon 
me for saying I still think Matthew rather bettei' 
adapted to the rural districts. 

So we will remember that to the birds our 
cherry-trees are a true Promised Land, where 
Nature herself invites them to enter in and take 
possession. We will ever bear in mind that Mooly 
and Brindle have no forecast of fiill granaries 
to console them for present deprivation, and that 
the waving corn-field rustles for them, and for 
them the rich rye quivers, and they do but obey 
their highest law, when they pass through the 
carelessly swinging gate and feast on the fatness 
of the land. 

In fact, our three little calves always wrought 
their mischief with such winsome grace as dis- 
armed anger and amply repaid us in amusement 
what they cost us of trouble. They were a source 
of unfailing interest and wonder, — 

" A phantom of delight, 
When first they gleamed upon our sight, 
A lovely apparition, sent 
To be a moment^s ornament." 

And every day heightened their charms. 

Mr. Henry James, illustrating some false con- 
ception of the relation between God and man, 
somewhere says, " You simply need to recall the 



120 SUMMER REST, 

relation of irksome superintendence on the one 
hand, and of utter indifference on the other, 
which vivify the intercourse of a farmer and his 
calves." 

Now to Mr. Henry James, as a general rule, 
it would be difficult to award too much praise. 
The river of his speech, rippling through summer 
shadows, or rushing over rocky ways, still flows, 
like Siloa's brook, fast by the oracles of God. 
And though it winds sometimes through inac- 
cessible places, and you tell its course only by 
its music, and not by its sparkle, and though it 
channels a path sometimes through murky valleys 
whose every vapor is laden with pestilence, yet 
you know that, pure and purifying, singing through 
its leafy solitudes and shining heavenly clear in 
Tophet as in Tempe, the burden of its song is. 
Peace on earth, good-will to man, while it hastens 
on to mingle its crystal stream with the waters 
of the river of life. 

But, Mr. Henry James, good and wise as you 
are, I am certain you never owned a calf. At 
least, you never stood in confidential relations 
to one. "Irksome superintendence?" You did 
not witness the welcome we gave our poor little 
favorite, torn all trembling from its mother's side 
by the stern demand of some greedy purse ; how 
we stroked him, and patted him, and — begging 
your pardon — scratched his head, and so soothed 
away his sorrow ere he was aware ; how we 



FANCY FARMING. 121 

stayed his staggering limbs, and because he was 
too young, and knew not how to drink, but only 
stared at the basin and at us and vacancy, in 
an uncertain, moonstruck way, did I not put my 
own fingers into the milk and draw his mouth 
down to them, and, deceived by the pious fraud, 
did not the poor little hungry innocent, like Dido 
of old, drink large draughts of love, in happy 
io;norance that it was not Nature's own arrano-e- 
ment for such case made and provided? No, 
Mr. James, — where it is a question of absolute 
philosophy, ordinary cosmology, noumenal force, 
instinctual relegation, and the fundamental an- 
tithesis of Me and Not-Me, you shall have every- 
thing your own way ; but when it comes to live- 
stock, you must ask me first ! 

Such a mistake, however, is not unaccountable. 
Farming, it must be conceded, is in some respects 
a hard-hearted business, little calculated to cherish 
the finer feelings. Separation of families is so 
common a thing among farmers that the sight of 
sorrow ceases to sadden. Calves are taken from 
their mothers at a tender age, to the great trial 
of both mother and child ; and a sufficient excuse 
for this trampling upon Nature is supposed to be 
concentrated in the one word. Veal, All last night 
the air reverberated with the agonized lowings of 
a bereaved cow in a neighboring pasture, and with 
the earliest dawn there she stood forlorn, pressing 
her aching breast against the cold, dew-damp gate, 
6 



122 SUMMER REST. 

and gazing with mournful longing up the road 
last trodden by her darling's lingering feet. But 
it is all right, because — veal! A hen may be sud- 
denly wrested from her infant brood and brought 
back from her private nest into the dreary pha- 
lanstery, because Mr. Worldly Wiseman thinks 
the laying of eggs a more important thing than 
the cultivation of domestic virtues. To the exi- 
gencies of "profit" everything else must give way. 
The result can but be deleterious. The peach- 
bloom of sensibility is presently rubbed off by 
constant trituration of harsh utiHties. Only yes- 
terday I received an invitation from a gentleman 
of standing and character to visit a famous farm ; 
and one of the inducements expressly held out 
was the pleasure of seeing a hundred sheep from 
Canada, with a hundred little lambs, all their 
respective little tails cut off short. What a re- 
quest was there, my countrymen ! For why 
were those little tails cut off, in the first place ? 
and if they were cut off, why should any humane 
person be invited to see such a spectacle of man's 
rapacity ? It must have been sheer wantonness. 
You sometimes prune away sundry branches of a 
tree, to make the rest of it grow better; but 
will there be any more to a leg of mutton because 
it had no tail? No, sir. When I go a sheep- 
gazing, I want to see the sheep walking about 
with dignity and comfort, and coming home, as 
little Bo-Peep wanted hers, bringing their tails 
behind them. 



FANCY FARMING. US 

What we can we do to stem this tide of demor- 
alization. We have never set our hearts upon 
taking the first prize at any fair for anything. 
We do not count upon deriving great pecuniary 
strength from contact with our Mother Earth. 
But upon this one thing we have determined, — 
that every creature on our plantation, which is 
allowed to live at all, shall live as far as possible 
in the enjoyment of every bounty which Nature 
bestowed upon him. No dumb life shall be the 
worse for falling into our hands. We do not dis- 
dain to study the nature of our calves, nor to grati- 
fy their innocent whims. One refuses milk and 
chooses water: water is always provided. An- 
other exults in apples, bread, and fried potatoes, 
and eats them from your hand with most winsome 
confidence. They dislike the confinement of their 
parade-ground, yearning to roam over the grassy 
knolls, to snuff the scent of the clover-blossoms, 
to drink the dew from buttercups, to lie on the 
velvet turf and let the summer soak through their 
tough hides and penetrate their inmost hearts. 
How calm then are their beautiful mazarine blue 
eyes ! What deep content relaxes every fibre of 
their breathing bodies! How happily the days 
of Thalaba go by ! They seem to have attained 
to a premature tranquillity, the meditative mood 
of full-grown kine. But if sometimes the morn- 
ing wine of June leaps through their veins with 
a strange vigor in its pulse, you shall see how 



124 SUMMER REST. 

bravely their latent youtlifulness asserts itself. 
Frisking with many an ungainly gambol, they 
dash across the orchard, bending their backs into 
an angle, brandishing their tails aloft, jerking, but- 
ting, pushing, and jostling each other, in joy too 
intense for expression. 

In truth. Nature is fond of her little joke as 
well as the rest of us, though the actors in the 
comedy do not always discern the comic element 
in it. Strange how ridiculous anything may be, 
and yet not have the smallest suspicion that it is 
ridiculous. As when, for instance, one of these lit- 
tle '' Bossy calves," fumbling and smelling around 
a chair, got his head between the rounds of the 
lower part and could not get it out again. He 
did not see the point of the joke at all, but stum- 
bled about, shaking his head wildly, and wedging 
it in more firmly with every struggle. It was 
no easy matter to get near enough to help him ; 
and, in spite of his terror and impatience of the 
situation, one could but laugh at the figure he 
made. I remember once seeing a pretty little 
yellow-bird on the fence looking as if he had three 
legs. A three-legged bird ! — this must be attended 
to. I crept near enough to resolve the third leg 
into his tail, on which he had settled himself, lean- 
ing backward in a persistent d-etermination to 
swallow a huge worm, which was just as per- 
sistently determined not to be swallowed. Birdie 
gulped and wormie wriggled. Birdie looked very 



FANCY FARMING. 125 

solemn, and wormie very angry. Birdie would 
not give up, and wormie would not go down. 
There was a good deal of fun, but I had it all to 
myself. Once a caterpillar hung his cocoon to my 
window-sash, and I determined to keep my eye 
on him and see him begin life as a butterfly. I 
watched him week after week without detecting 
any change, and upon consulting the text-books 
of Natural History, found that he had probably 
reached middle age, as butterflies count time, be- 
fore I began to suspect he had been born at all. 
But did the little sprite know I was watching him? 
Did he creep out on the farther side, and shut 
the door behind him carefully, and steal slyly 
around the corner of the house for his wings to 
dry, and come peeping down from the roof every 
day, laughing in his sleeve to see me watching 
that empty nest? And did he tell the story to 
his friends at some butterfly dinner-party, and 
did they laugh at me till the tears ran from their 
wicked little eyes, and say, in butterfly jargon, 
what a '' sell " it was, and pat him on the shoulder, 
and call him ^' a sad dog " ? 

Driving in Natick one day, I observed, in some 
of the pleasant grounds which ornament that town, 
a very nice little contrivance ; — a coil of fence 
you might call it, made of iron wire, capable of 
being rolled and unrolled, and so enabling you 
to make an enclosure when and where you chose. 
Set your fence down on one part of the lawn, 



126 SUMMER REST. 

turn in your lambs, and, when they have cropped 
all the grass, remove the establishment to another 
place. I represented very ably and vividly to 
my prime minister the advantages of such a fence 
to our calves and to ourselves. It gives them 
at once the freedom of the turf, yet does not 
loose them beyond our control. And then it looks 
so picturesque ! 

'' Yes," said he, briskly, " we must have one." 

'^ That w^e must ! " I responded with enthusi- 
asm, delighted at his ready acquiescence. Not 
that a non-acquiescence would have made any 
difference in the result, but the process would 
have been more tedious. 

The next morning he called me out, with great 
flourish of trumpets, to see The Iron Fence. 

" It is not possible," I said, in astonishment. 
" You have had no time to send." 

" No, — I made it," he replied, boldly. 

" You ! " still more astonished. '' I knew there 
was a tangle of iron wire in the barn, but »*., 
looked rusty." 

He made no reply, only whistled me on as if I 
w^ere his dog, — he often does that, — and I fol- 
lowed, musing. The iron fences that I had seen 
showed a fine tracery, delicate and graceful, seem- 
ingly, as the cobwebs on the morning grass : could 
they, like these, be woven in a single summer 
night ? The sequel will show. I appeared upon 
the scene. A single slender iron pole was driven 



FANCY FARMING. ^ 127 

into the ground : one end of a piece of rope was 
fastened to it, the other end encircled the necK 
of our httle black, woolly calf, Tc>psy, who was 
describing great circles around the pole, in her 
frenzy to escape. 

" Sir," said I, after a somewhat prolonged si- 
lence, " it is the old crow-bar." 

" No," said he, confidently, '' it is an Iron 
Fence, — such as they have in Natick. Only," 
he added, after a short pause, and as if the 
thought had just occurred to him, '^perhaps theirs 
is the old-fashioned centripetal kind. This is the 
New Centrifugal Iron Fence ! " 

Kindness to animals is, like every other good 
thing, its own reward. It is homage to Nature, 
and Nature takes you into the circle of her sym- 
pathies and refreshes you with balsam and opiate. 
We, too, delight in green meadows and blue sky. 
Resting with our pets on the southern slope, the 
heavens lean tenderly over us, and star-flowers 
whisper to us the brown earth's secrets. Ever 
wonderful and beautiful is it to see the frozen, 
dingy sod springing into slender grass-blades, pur- 
ple violets, and snow-white daisies. The lover 
deemed it a token of extraordinary devotion, that, 
when his mistress came by, his 

" dust would hear her and beat, 
Had I lain for a century dead ; 
"Would start and tremble under her feet, 
And blossom in purple and red." 



128 SUMMER REST, 

But no foot so humble, so little loved, so seldom 
listened for, that the earth will not feel its tread 
and blossom up a hundred-fold to meet her child. 
And every dainty blossom shall be so distinctly 
wrought, so gracefully poised, so generously en- 
dowed, that you might suppose Nature had lav- 
ished all her love on that one fair flower. 

As you lie on the grass, watching the ever- 
shifting billows of the sheeny sea, that dash with 
soundless surge against the rough old tree-trunks, 
marking how the tall grasses bend to every breeze 
and darken to every cloud, only to arise and shine 
again when breeze and cloud are passed by, there 
comes through your charmed silence — which is 
but the perfect blending of a thousand happy 
voices — one cold and bitter voice, — 

" Golden to-day, to-morrow gray : 
So fades young love from life away ! " 

O cold, false voice, die back again into your outer 
darkness ! I know the reaper will come, and the 
golden grain will bow before him, for this is Na- 
ture's law ; but in its death lies the highest work 
*of its circling life. All was fair ; but this is fairest 
of all. It dies, indeed, but only to continue its 
beneficence ; and with fresh beauty and new vigor 
it shall blossom for other springs. 

Fainter, but distinctly still, comes the chilling 
voice, — 

" Though every summer green the plain. 
This harvest cannot bloom again." 



FANCY FARMING, 129 

False still ! This harvest shall bloom again in 
perpetual and ever-increasing loveliness. It shall 
leap in the grace of the lithe-limbed steed, it 
shall foam in the milk of gentle-hearted cows, it 
shall shine in the splendor of light- winged birds, it 
shall laugh in the baby's dimple, toss in the child's 
fair curls, and blush in the maiden's cheek. Nay, 
by some inward way, it shall spring again in the 
green pastures of the soul, blossoming in great 
thoughts, in kindly words, in Christian deeds, till 
the soil that cherished it shall seem to seeing 
eyes all consecrate, and the Earth that flowers 
such growths shall be Eden, the Garden of God. 




6* 




A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL. 

)E had been talking of the National 
Council. I shall not explain what 
that is, though there are people who 
affect not to know. I would only 
suggest modestly, and in an undertone, that the 
National Council can much better afford not to 
be known by any person, than any person can 
afford not to know it. Rarely is there witnessed 
a scene of more deep, wide, and overpowering 
interest than that which happened one June day 
in the Mount Vernon church, in Boston, when 
America met England in open court, and with 
calm voice read out to her the list of her wrong- 
doings. It was an old story. It had rung across 
the sea a thousand times, and returned to us void ; 
but heard on our own soil, heralded by the cheers 
of a victorious army, three hundred thousand 
strong, it sounded after quite another sort. The 
England that had sinned cried peccavi ; the better 
England, that had fought side by side with us 
bravely against the sin, joined in our jubilate ; and 



A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL. 131 

then Christian America, too noble to overlook an 
unrepented or to remember a repented wrong, 
gave, amid tears and cheers, — fierce outburst of 
an excitement that would not be suppressed, — 
the right-hand of forgiveness and Christian fellow- 
ship. 

There was another hour not to be easily for- 
gotten, or lightly remembered. Two hundred 
and forty years and more after the landing of the 
Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, with w^inter and the 
Indian in front, two unknown foes, and deadly as 
unknown, there met on the same rock a goodly 
company, the flower of men gathered from the 
Atlantic and the Pacific shores, from the continent 
stretching between, and from beyond the seas, — 

" The sons of sires who conquered there 
With arm to strike, and soul to dare, 
As quick, as far as they " ; 

and on that rock, the sacred shrine of Liberty 
in this young Western world, they gave in their 
joyful adhesion to the principles which had borne 
the fathers through their long agony to the glo- 
rious end. 

The appearance of the Council was altogether 
impressive. I had no disposition to quarrel with 
any of its decisions, or if I had, it was overborne 
by the weight which their deliberation and ability 
carried. But a friend of mine, who is less im- 
pressible, was not so disposed to assent, and per- 
sisted in asking, Was I quite satisfied with all the 



132 SUMMER REST. 

proceedings, — with the "Declaration of Faith," 
for instance ? 

L I thought I was. I am certainly profoundly 
satisfied with its promulgation at Plymouth Rock. 

H. That is, you are pleased with the dramatic 
element ; but as it was mainly a theological and 
ecclesiastical council, convened only once in two 
hundred years, is it not rather desirable that its 
theology should be of no uncertain cast ? 

L I find no fault with its theology. The Dec- 
laration of Faith seems to me simple and sublime. 

H, I have no quarrel with its sublimity, but 
I am not so sure on the simplicity side. We de- 
clare our adherence to the faith and order " which 
the synods of 1648 and 1680 set forth or re- 
affirmed." Have the goodness to tell me what 
that faith and order are. 

L Goodness, indeed ! How should I know ? 
Are they published in Webster's Spelling-Book, 
that I should have them at command ? 

H. Exactly. Why, then, did not these rever- 
end seigniors state our own points of faith, and 
let every one judge for himself, rather than refer 
back to something which ninety-nine persons in 
a hundred have jio means of reading, and which 
nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand never 
wdll read. 

I, I suppose it was done partly to save time 
and trouble, and partly for the express purpose of 
showing the world that the faith has not changed. 



A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL. 133 

S. So far as saving time and trouble is con- 
cerned, it would have saved still more if the 
Council had not met at all. It is poor economy 
for a Council to save time by not doing what it 
was expressly convened to do ; and if the faith 
of the fathers is not changed, so much the worse 
for the sons. To adhere to their faith can hardly 
but be to depart from their spirit. To be like 
our fathers is not to do what they did, but as they 
did, — not to wear their clothes, but to be moved 
by their spirit. They searched the Scriptures, and 
tried to frame their creeds, and guide their lives 
by the light they found therein. But we have 
been searching the Scriptures for two hundred 
years more, and with such assistance as they could 
not command. Bible literature has been wonder- 
fully improved and increased since their time. 
Geography, philology, history, travel, criticism, 
have all made the sacred text a focus of their 
light. It would be very strange if all this illumi- 
nation had brought out no new meaning, — if our 
fathers saw as much in their darkness as we in 
our light. The Reverend Assembly of Divines 
at Westminster were undoubtedly an able body 
of men, but probably less able than the body assem- 
bled in Ashburton Place. The former were chosen 
at random, every member of Parliament selecting 
his man. The latter were chosen deliberately, 
each man by the community around him, who 
knew its best man, and would have every motive 



134 SUMMER REST. 

to elect him its delegate. These men, the flower 
of all the churches, would have done an act much 
more worthy of the character, and suitable to the 
dignity of the Council which they composed, had 
they drawn up as simply and comprehensively as 
possible a Declaration of Faith which should have 
expressed the present belief of the churches in the 
present language of the people, instead of pinning 
their faith to the sleeves of the Westminster and 
other Divines. 

L I don't recollect that there was anything said 
about Westminster in the ''Declaration." 

H. The first draft, read by Dr. Thompson, men- 
tioned the Westminster Confession and Catechism. 
No member of the Council made any opposition 
to it, that I know of. Probably most of them 
agree with it. Why these names were left out of 
the final draft by the skilful managers of the 
Council I do not know. But the thorough au- 
thentication of them is there under the innocent- 
looking declaration of adherence to the faith and 
order, " which our synods of 1648 and 1680 set 
forth or reaffirmed." 

I, You speak as if there were something sinis- 
ter in the matter, which I do not believe. It is not 
the way of our people to do things under the rose. 
Besides, what motive was there ? We all believe 
the Westminster Catechism, so that there could 
have been no intrinsic objection to having it in- 
serted bodily into the Declaration. 



A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL, 135 

H. You subscribe to it, do you ? 

I, Certainly I do, from turret to foundation- 
stone, — " as I understand it " : which is not say- 
ing much, to be sure. 

S. Did you ever happen to read that docu- 
ment ? 

I. I happened to learn it by heart when I was 
a child, and repeated it to the minister, and got a 
Bible for my pains. 

IT. Then perhaps you can answer the question, 
" What is the work of creation ? " 

jT. Just as easy as nothing ! " The work of 
creation is, God's making all things of nothing 
by the word of his power, in the space of six 
days, and all very good." 

H. You believe, then, that God did make all 
things in six days? 

I. Not exactly, no ; that is, not as we now 
use the word day. But the Bible says "six days," 
and whatever the Bible means by that we believe. 
The only question is as to what the Bible does 
mean. 

S. But there is no question as to what the 
Westminster Divines meant by six days. And 
what they meant we do not mean. Therefore we 
cannot subscribe to their statement. 

/. But this is a mere side-issue. These old 
Divines knew nothing of Geology, and took the 
words as they appeared on the face of them, just 
as I suppose the Jews did. 



136 SUMMER REST. 

You know we are not obliged to take the Cate- 
chism with strict verbal adherence, but only for 
*' substance of doctrine," which is not affected, 
whether the world were made in six days or six 
ages. 

S, Not at all ; but why adopt a two-hundred- 
year-old creed, which contains and must contain 
all the incorrectness of its age ? Our own gener- 
ation has errors enough of its own. Why should 
it adopt also those of its ancestors ? 

Here is another question that trenches hard upon 
even the " substance of doctrine." 

" What did God at first reveal to man for the 
rule of his obedience ? " 

L " And so forth, — the moral law." 

H, '' Where is the moral law summarily com- 
prehended? " 

L " Ditto. In the ten commandments." 

jET. Yet St. Paul says that when the Gentiles, 
which have not the law, do by nature the things 
contained in the law, they are a law unto them- 
selves ; so that, in spite of the Westminster Divines, 
we believe that God did not leave himself without 
witness, even before the ten commandments were 
issued, or where they had never been heard of. 

But again, " What is required in the fourth 
commandment ? " 

L " The fourth commandment requireth the 
keeping holy to God such set times as he hath 
appointed in his word, expressly one whole day in 
seven, to be an holy Sabbath to himself." 



A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL, 137 

IT. '^ Which day of the seven hath God ap- 
pointed to be the weekly Sabbath ? " 

I. Dear ! dear ! '' From the beginning of the 
world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed 
the seventh day of the week to be the weekly 
Sabbath, and the first day of the week ever since 
to continue to the end of the world, which is the 
Christian Sabbath." Now do not ask me if I be- 
lieve that, because you know I do not. But in 
truth I did not think anything about it. I forgot 
the Catechism said anything about Sunday, and so 
I dare say did the rest of the Council. 

IT, " The rest of the Council ! " But so much 
the worse if a deliberative assembly subscribed to 
they knew not what. 

I. They only subscribed to the ''substance of 
doctrine." Justification and sanctification and the 
atonement, and such things, were what I suppose 
they had chiefly in mind. 

S. What I have in mind is, that a fly is not a 
proper ingredient in a pot of ointment, and that 
those who publish a recommendation of the oint- 
ment ought first to take out the fly. If there 
were as much untruth, implied and direct, in the 
Westminster Catechism about the atonement as 
there is about this matter of the " Christian Sab- 
bath," would you think it well to accept the 
Catechism by wholesale, and say nothing about it ? 

I. No, and I do not think it was well as it is. 
I am sorry they did it. I am sorry they did not 



138 SUMMER REST, 

make a declaration of their own faith. But I do 
not beHeve that there was any underhand work 
about it. I believe the framers and the receivers 
of this declaration were scrupulously honest and 
upright, and that they had no design whatever to 
foist any doctrine into the Church. 

J3^. Neither do I think they had ; but it is a pity 
they did not avoid the appearance of evil. The 
worst I think or suspect is, that under cover of the 
old synod they hoped to avoid discussions which 
might promise to be unprofitable and interminable. 
But it seems to me that there are discussions 
which ought to be held, unless certain matters 
quietly change themselves. For instance, this very 
one of Sunday. I suspect the reason why the 
Catechism passed muster in its Sabbath doctrine 
was, not simply, as you say, that the Council did 
not think of it, — though that fact may be true, — 
but that they would have found no fault with it if 
they had thought of it. Probably every member 
of the Council teaches in his own pulpit, and has 
taught in his Sunday school, that God commands 
us in the Bible to keep the first day of the week 
as a Sabbath. It is not discussed, and would not 
have been discussed had it been brought up, be- 
cause it is a settled matter. But since it is settled 
wrong and settled mischievously, it ought to be 
unsettled. t . 

I. I do not believe you, it is my painful duty to 
declare. I am an Orthodox Congregationalist 



A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL. 139 

born and bred, and J do not believe that God any- 
where commanded us to keep the Sabbath, or ever 
did command anybody but the Jews to keep it. 

S". Then you dp not beheve as you were 
taught. 

I, If I have changed the faith to which I was 
born, the change has been so gradual that I have 
not perceived it. 

H. If you would go into your next " teachers' 
meeting " and state your views, I presume the 
change would at once become palpable. 

I. No, I thank you. 

IT. And "No, I thank you" say others on 
whom such a course lies as a duty. I have no 
doubt that in the aggregate there are many who 
see the inconsequence of the popular mode of rea- 
soning, but say nothing about it. There is not in 
the whole range of fallacies a more absolute non 
sequitur than that which imposes the Sabbath upon 
Christians, but many have been brought up in 
that habit of thought, and pay no attention to the 
thought itself ; others who do consider it, look at 
it with their traditions, not with their eyes, and 
many who do see it, do not care to take the trouble 
and incur the obloquy of opposing and exposing it. 
As for the religious newspapers, they are con- 
ducted, not in the interests of truth, but of a de- 
nomination, with as much truth as that denomina- 
tion may happen to have embraced. So that the 
fallacy for a while has it all its own way. In this 



140 SUMMER REST. 

Sunday question, that is taught as a duty which is 
not a duty. The lesson is enforced by arguments 
that are fallacious, but they are accepted by the 
people partly through an inaptitude for thinking, 
and partly through a blind confidence in their 
teachers, who are supposed to think for them. 
These arguments are defended by ''proof-texts," 
the majority of which prove nothing to the pur- 
pose, have indeed no connection, or but an inci- 
dental one, with the matter in hand, but have 
verbal resemblance enough to a proof to deceive 
the unwary or the inexpert. A jumble of Old and 
New Testament is served out from pulpit and press 
as Christianity. But while this medley is diffused 
throughout our religious literature, in Sunday- 
school book, tract, and periodical, no fair state- 
ment of the opposite side is permitted to appear. 

I. O no, no, that is not true. You overstate. 

£[, Crede experto. 

L But doubtless your expert-ing was with a 
long, belligerent, metaphysical paper, too unwieldy 
for use, w^hatever its doctrine may have been. 

S, Vastly complimentary. 

L Just you write, or I will write, a short, inci- 
dental article, touching the question lightly, but 
not uncertainly, making not so much an attack as 
a suggestion, and I have no doubt we should find 
ample room and verge enough. 

H. Try it if you like. 

L I will try it. 



A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL. 141 

I did try it, sending my short paper to various 
respectable religious newspapers. Some formally 
and freezingly replied, and some said by their si- 
lence. Better stay at home. They thought the 
tendency of the paper "would be to unsettle the 
minds of many readers." They " w^ould use cheer- 
fully that which relates to the importance of set- 
ting forth our belief in the language of to-day, but 
it would be with the greatest reluctance we could 
consent to publish w^hat you say about the Sab- 
bath." They did not " believe that one in ten of 
our readers would agree with you, and its publica- 
tion would tend strongly to the secularization of 
the Sabbath." They could not publish this paper, 
but would be glad '• to publish an article from you 
in which you and we could agree." But if people 
agree, what is the need of saying anything ? There 
is no use in going further, is there ? I asked. 

JI. Not the least in the world. You would be 
served with the same sauce by the Monthlies and 
the Quarterlies as by the Weeklies. Boston Re- 
view, New Englander, and the majestic Bibliotheca 
Sacra, — not one of them all will suffer you to lay 
a finger's weight on the Sabbath. No strange 
thing has happened to you. It is a matter of 
course, that where you diverge from a sect, you 
must go on your own account. They will not 
lend you their organs to refute their own argu- 
ments. No matter how well you can prove that 
you have the Bible on your side, their readers 



142 SUMMER REST. 

shall never see the proof. They are the teachers 
of the people, and if they choose to teach the tra- 
ditions of the elders instead of the Gospel of Christ, 
they will not help you to publish anything im- 
pugning those traditions. You will be shut out 
from their columns, and you cannot possibly get 
your statements before the mass of their sub- 
scribers. 

I. Of course if they believe it is error, they will 
not turn to and promulgate it. And I can very 
clearly see that there is danger in that direction. 
To strip from Sunday its false sanctity may seem 
to be plundering it of its true. That is to be 
guarded against. 

IT, But not by letting it keep its borrowed or 
stolen feathers. 

I. No. And it seems to me cowardly and un- 
philosophical, and not at all in the true spirit of 
inquiry, to be so afraid of what a thing may lead 
to. The question is, not what a truth is going to 
do, but what is truth. We are not put here to 
keep the universe in motion, but to find out what 
is its principle of motion, and to put ourselves in 
harmony with that. Besides, truth is always safe 
and conservative ; falsehood, never. There is no 
such thing as arriving at right conclusions, if you 
are always to be hampered by the clamor of some 
craft that is in danger. It is absolutely indispen- 
sable that we take to investigation a pure heart, 
an open mind, ready'to receive what is, without 



A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL. 143 

fear or favor, or respect of persons or prejudices 
or interests. 

H, But many minds have lost this receptive 
power. They have become callous. No argu- 
ment touches them. They never come into con- 
tact with another mind. There is a sort of mental 
paralysis. 

I. It is very sad. 

J71 It is the saddest of all mental conditions short 
of insanity, for it is the stoppage of growth. It 
is death in life. It is the old fable of the Medu- 
sa's head come true. And the worst of it is, that 
the persons suffering from it are profoundly un- 
conscious of their condition. For it consists with 
great apparent activity. The present state of 
the Sunday question is largely due to this want of 
sensitiveness to the truth, yet there is a vigorous 
effort now making to diffuse these unscriptural and 
untruthful notions. All the Presbyterian, and I 
believe all the Baptist ministers, are to be supplied 
with a copy of Gilfillan's book on the Sabbath. It 
is very plausible, and its arguments will be received 
honestly by many of both teachers and taught. 
People have been so educated and accustomed to 
look upon the Bible as one dead level of doctrine 
that they are easily led blindfold by such fellows as 
this Gimilan. 

/. Do not call him "fellows." It is bad enough 
to be a man without being men in general. That 
is spiteful, is it not? But you are really growing 



144 SUMMER REST. 

quite cross, and I shall have to " fight fire with 
fire." 

H, When one man or men in general spice a 
sufficient quantity of pious language with a little 
holy horror of the impiety of their opponents' 
teachings, and fortify their positions with a dozen 
or twenty Old Testament texts on the sanctifica- 
tion of the Sabbath, asserting or assuming that 
those texts are as conclusive for the first day of 
the week to the Americans as they were for the 
seventh to the Jews, and closing up the argument 
with a twang of Q. E. D., the state of Biblical 
knowledge is such that nineteen out of twenty 
will think he has made out his case. 

/. Now I really must interfere. I do not so 
much wonder at your bitterness ; for to have one's 
articles rejected by everybody is enough to pro- 
voke a saint, which you were never accused of 
being. But it is sad to see you losing not only 
temper and manners, but logic. What a contra- 
diction it is to say the state of Biblical knowledge 
is so low, when, only a little while ago, you arro- 
gated to our day a vast superiority in Biblical 
knowledge over that of our ancestors. Or do you 
think that you alone are versed in Biblical knowl- 
edge, and that all wisdom will die with you? 
Really, you talk about the Sunday question as if 
you thought so ! 

H, You have a lovely way of charming one 
unconsciously out of ill-temper, if one should ever 



A COUNCIL ABOlfT A COUNCIL, 145 

-happen to be in it ! But you may rest assured it 
is quite possible for Biblical knowledge to be much 
further advanced than formerly, and yet nineteen 
out of twenty have very little of it. I fear our 
congregations generally know no more about the 
Bible than did the congregations of fifty or a hun- 
dred years ago, — if indeed they know as much. 
But if they are disposed to study it, they can learn 
a great deal more than could have been learned 
then. 

Z I tell you what I will do. Have you read 
this book of Gilfillan's? 

IT. No ; nor any man of woman born, I suspect. 
I have read at it several times. 

J. You have it ? 

IT. In some boundless contiguity or other. I 
carted it round several days last winter in town. 

I. Say you took it with you. That would be 
nmch more civil. Don't you think I might write 
out a sort of exposition of the true state of the case, 
reviewing this book, perhaps, but at any rate show- 
ing the true character of the Sunday ; and then if 
the periodicals will have none of it, we can set up 
a printing-press for ourselves, as Horace Walpole 
did, on Strawberry Hill. You hunt up the book. 

H. Very well, if you like. It will be of ser- 
vice to yourself, and do nobody any harm, though 
I question whether it does much good. 

J. O, things in general do not do much good, 
but you have to do them just the same. 
7 J 



146 SUMMER REST. 

So it came to pass in process of time that I 
presented myself with a formidable roll of man- 
uscript. Halicarnassus made woful eyes at it, but 
there was no escape. "If it is inevitable," he 
pleaded, however, " let us take advantage of all 
possible mitigating circumstances. Get your work, 
and we will go down in the orchard and have it 
out there." 

/. You already enjoy to the full the advantage 
designated by the Abbot Trublet a hundred years 
ago, namely, that ''it is advantage to every partic- 
ular person not to have too much sense." 

It was a little sharp I admit, but Halicarnassus 
is very apt to suggest to me to take my work, 
and we w ill do thus and so ; but I do not wish 
to take my work and be read or talked to. Work 
means sewing, and sewing spoils everything. It 
is a bad habit, hard to form and hard to break. 
It is demoralizing ; never to be resorted to ex- 
cept as a relief or a necessity, or, like involuntary 
servitude, as a punishment for crime. There are 
states of mind for which sewing is soothing. It 
attracts just enough of your attention and vitality 
to draw off the surplus electricity and give you a 
chance to come down from your excitement, get 
wholesomely tired and able to sleep. Also when 
it is a question between rags and sewing, I sup- 
pose one should choose the sewing. But for per- 
sons who are not obliged to sew, to spend day after 
day in pulling a string through a piece of cloth 



A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL. 147 

seems a lamentable waste of time. And lament- 
able too is it that this busy idleness should be 
lauded as a virtue. In a world where there is so 
much real work to be done, necessary work, 
eternal work, all who can free themselves from 
the petty necessities ought to do so both for the 
sake of the world's work and the world's poor. 
There are always people enough glad to do all the 
sewing we can give them, to whom the money 
which it brings means common comfort, perhaps 
sustenance, perhaps a sense of self-respect and 
self-help. I fear a great deal of what we call 
industry is unnecessary narrowing to small issues. 
A soul's life is pricked out with the point of a nee- 
dle, when it ought instead to be always ripening 
by and for the great busy-ness of eternity : and all 
the while it is doing this it flatters itself that it is 
doing duty and being exemplary. 

No, if sewing must be done, let us go into our 
chambers and shut the doors, and forbid all pro- 
fane approach, and forget that there is a great, glo- 
rious world outside, and sew as long as we can 
keep our temper, but let us not sully the splendor 
of summer afternoons with needle and thread. 

This is a doctrine that will suit men, whatever 
women think about it ! I know one man who likes 
it, at least to the degree that he is firmly con- 
vinced it conduces more to his happiness to have 
one enjoy life according to one's tastes, than to 
work and lose one's temper. If a man has no but- 



148 SUMMER REST. 

ton on his wristband, he can do without it ; if the 
coffee is bad, he can drink water, and be just as 
well off in half an hour. There is talk sometimes 
of health and spirits depending on wholesome food ; 
but why is it not just as disastrous for me to de- 
stroy my health and temper in cooking you good 
food as it is for you to impair yours by eating 
bad ? For you know I could not endure existence 
over a cooking-stove ; and life would be no boon to 
you without me, would it, Halicarnassus ? He is 
whittling a whistle out of a willow twig, and does 
not seem to hear me. A little louder, '^ Would it, 
Halicarnassus?" ''Eh? no. O, no!" But he need 
not have hallooed his sentiment as if he had been 
driving oxen. As I was sayuig, slight annoy- 
ances may be* put aside, but an unhappy face is an 
ever-present sorrow. Work that one does against 
one's nature will be fiercely avenged. Tastes, — 
what were they given us for but enjoyment and 
guidance ? The thing which one likes to do, that 
is the thing which one can do best, and which he 
will do the most good in doing. The existence of 
the liking is the sign of the power. There is no 
calling in life, be it embraced with ever so much 
delight, that will pijeclude the necessity of atten- 
tion and care and sacrifice ; but when these come 
in the natural way, the natural attendants of hearty 
work, they nerve and strengthen. How unwise to 
engage, from some mistaken notion of duty, or 
simply because everybody else does, in an uncon- 



A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL, 149 

genial calling, where the friction tends to weary 
not only, but to baffle and dispirit. Why make 
life harder than it need be, or was meant to be ? 
I hate that religion or that philosophy w^hich pre- 
tends to look complacently upon troubles as if 
they were something to be quietly borne and not 
stoutly resisted. These light afflictions are but 
for a moment, said Paul ; but he climbed out of a 
window and dropped dow^n in a basket to escape 
them, and not till he had made every effort to 
put them aside did he stand up and endure them. 
Then it was manliness. To have done it earlier 
would have been weakness. It is trouble, it is 
discomfort, it is unhappiness, that brings in sin and 
crime. It is never so easy to be good as when 
/ you are happy. It is never so easy to be cross as 
J when you are crossed. The good God has pro- 
^vided, in the nature of things, all the trial w^hich 
the human constitution needs. Men may strenu- 
ously endeavor to make every pathway as smooth 
as possible, without fearing that the soul will be- 
come a Sybarite. All trouble that is wantonly or 
carelessly or needlessly made for us by friend or foe 
is an injury. The heart can stand wear and tear 
^only within certain limits. Beyond those there is 
harm of some kind to temper, health, or spirits, 
and no amount of Christian resignation can prevent 
it ; for the Christianity that is necessary to bring 
resignation might have been used aggressively 
against some wrong. When the cupidity or neg- 



i 



150 SUMMER REST. 

ligence of a railroad company costs a limb, you 
may be resigned to the will of God, but you can 
never be sound again ; and a lost happiness, a lost 
hopefulness, a lost mirthfiilness, is as fatal to char- 
acter and to the best life as a bodily disaster. 

"It seems to me," says Halicarnassus, dubiously, 
" that there is another side which you — " 

I, If there is, let it alone. One side is enough 
at a time. Now read the Essay. 

ff. An' 't please your Majesty, is it a review of 
Giimian? 

I, Well, yes, of Gilfillan and matters in general. 
That is, Gilfillan serves as a pretext for the whole 
thing, though I can't say it has much to do with 
him. 

IT. The saints defend us ! (turning over the 
manuscript.) It has much to do with something. 
Thirty pages, and foolscap ! 

I, Not a line too much. 

(There is this to be said in defence of my friend, 
that in his first estate he does not take kindly to 
these matters. But I am fond of theology, and he 
is fond of me, so it happens that, from whatever 
quarter we set sail, we generally find ourselves 
bearing down upon theology, — though the big 
ship often flies signals of distress, of which the 
little pilot-boat takes no heed.) 

Z But I can tell you, that after I had looked 
through the book, I w^as w^ellnigh discouraged — 

S, Discouraged to the tune of thirty pages of 
foolscap ! 



A COUNCIL ABOUT A COUNCIL, 151 

I. To find that so many people had written on 
this subject. I supposed the error was simply be- 
cause attention had never been called to the truth. 
On the contrary, the truth has been held up for 
centuries, and here we are groping in error still. 
What good can one little squeak do, when the 
thunders have been rolling for hundreds of years, 
and rolling in vain ? 

JET, Heaven defend our ears from thunder, if 
this is what you call a squeak! 

I, Shall I tell you what it was that put heart 
into me again ? 

I£, I am powerless in your hands. 

I. You know how the earthworms make each 
his little hole in the soil, and pile each his little 
pile of pulverized earth. ' And you know it is said 
these earthworms mellow the soil, and so fit it for 
cultivation. And I thought, that is the way with 
us all. We are earthworms, mellowing the hard 
pan of prejudice, that the truth may presently 
spring up and be fruitful. One earthworm can- 
not do much, but he can at least mellow his little 
sphere. 

S. Make his little pile, commercially speaking. 

/. And by and by we, or our successors, who 
have been delving so long, shall look up and find 
the whole earth softened, and the truth all green 
and vigorous everywhere. 

We had now reached the orchard, and having 
disposed ourselves suitably, Halicarnassus attacked 



152 SUMMER REST, 

the manuscript, though not ^yithout casting grudg- 
ing eyes at me, who divided the shining hours be- 
tween watching an ant-hill and reading for the 
seventeenth time the charming chatter of '" Little 
Prudy." 

Here is the paper, to be read or skipped as one 
chooses ; but I hope you will read it, for it is ex- 
cellent, — though I say it who should not. Excel- 
lent of course I mean for substance of doctrine, 
and otherwise as good as I could make it. 





GILFILLAN'S SABBATH* 



1i^^^?**^R0M the time of their deliverance out 
of Egypt to their captivity in Babylon, 
the Jews were continually lapsing into 
idolatry ; and from the time of St. Paul 
to the present, the Christian w^orld seems ever 
tending to lapse into Judaism. It is apparently a 
most difficult task to believe that the Messiah has 
come, or that, having come, he has introduced any 
change in our economy. 

The book w^hose title we have placed at the 
head of this paper has been widely distributed by 
a special effi^rt of the " New York Sabbath Com- 
mittee." A copy is furnished gratuitously to 
every pastor connected with the General Assem- 
bly of the Presbyterian Church, and with the Bap- 
tist and Orthodox churches. We have taken 
the trouble to examine the volume carefully, in 

* The Sabbath viewed in the Light of Reason, Revelation, 
and History, with Sketches of its Literature. By the Rev. 
James Gilfillan, Stirling, Scotland. Published by the Amer- 
ican Tract Society, 150 Nassau Street, New York, and the New 
York Sabbath Committee, 5 Bible House, Astor Place. 
7* 



154 SUMMER REST, 

order to ascertain what it is that merits so exten- 
sive and important a circulation. We find a trea- 
tise whose aim is to put the world back exactly 
where it was eighteen hundred years ago : to take 
us from under the law of Christ and put us under 
the law of Moses. In execution, it is prolix to 
weariness, singularly devoid of sprightliness, grace, 
and vigor of style and originality of treatment ; 
rambling and rhetorical where it should be concise 
and logical, involved in its argument, often obscure 
and always dull. On the other hand, it bears 
marks of unwearied industry. It has gathered 
from all quarters facts, doctrines, and opinions 
bearing on its theme, whether they are friendly 
or hostile to its own theory. It is — we can- 
not say animated, so lively a term being quite 
inadmissible, but it is evidently actuated by an 
honest desire to do God service. It seems to 
be conscientious, and means to be fair. Happily 
for the author's self-complacency, he is endowed 
with an inability to see the bearings of things, 
and plods along with equal serenity, whether the 
argument makes for or against him. He utters 
great truths which are fatal to his theory, in 
the innocent belief that they confirm it. He 
is not especially bitter, seldom attributing to his 
opponents anything worse than a blindness born 
of prejudice, or describing their hypothesis in any 
harsher terms than " an expedient foolish as well 
as allied to the irreverent and profane." From 



GILFI ELAN'S SABBATH. 155 

a candor and consideration so unwonted, what 
may we not expect? 

The intellectual calibre of the man may perhaps 
be best learned from the statement, that he calls 
the interpretation which makes the six days of 
creation denote periods of long duration, " in re- 
ality a libel on the simplest and most perfect style 
of historical writing," and finds an " unanswerable 
objection " to the '' dogma which would convert 
the days of creation into millenary cycles, and 
confound, to borrow an expression from Bishop 
Horsley, ' the writing of a history with the compo- 
sition of riddles.' " 

We do not design formally to review the book ; 
to follow the tortuous paths of its logic, its rhet- 
oric, and its history. For such an enterprise we 
should need to borrow the pages of an encyclo- 
paedia. But believing truth to be the best refuta- 
tion of error, we shall present, as concisely as 
possible, what we consider to be the nature and 
purpose of the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian 
Sunday, referring to the views of Mr. Gilfillan 
only where they obviously impinge upon our own. 

We premise first, that we shall found our argu- 
ment on the Bible. From the opinions of wise 
men, both in the earlier and later ages, from the 
hints of nature, and from our own preconceived 
notions of what ought to be, we may get what 
help we can, but the court of last resort is the 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. If the 



156 SUMMER REST, 

Sabbath is enjoined upon us in the Bible, we ac- 
cept it ; if it is not, we shall use our own judgment 
in accepting or rejecting it. 

In order to arrive at a right understanding and 
a full comprehension of the Bible, we need to 
know and always to bear in mind that the Bible 
has a body and a spirit, and that the body is like 
our own, of the earth earthy, and limited by time 
and space, while its Spirit is Divine and illimit- 
able. In spirit, it is the wdll of God revealed to 
man. In body, it is history, poetry, prophecy, 
narrative, epistles, chiefly relating and addressed 
to a single nation. To this nation it w^as a direct 
revelation. To us it is an oblique revelation. To 
both all-sufficient for the life that now is and for 
that which is to come, — if we use it and do not 
simply abuse it. 

For example : when God said to Abram, " Get 
thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, 
and from thy fa therms house, unto a land that I 
will show thee ; and I will make of thee a great 
nation, and I will bless thee," he spoke to Abram 
alone, and not to us Americans of the nineteenth 
century. When Christ said to the eleven Apos- 
tles, " Go ye into all the world and preach the 
Gospel to every creature," he spoke to the eleven 
Apostles and not to us. But believing with the 
Apostle Paul, on his authority combined with that 
of our own reason, that all these things are writ- 
ten for our admonition upon whom the ends of the 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 157 

world are come, we think it our part to ascertain 
what it is that God means to teach us by what 
he did and said to the Jews. While we judge, 
therefore, that he did not enjoin upon every man 
to leave -his country and his kindred and go to 
a foreign land, since that would be manifestly 
useless, impossible, and absurd, we do infer that 
he requires every man to separate himself from all 
wickedness, and to constitute himself and his fam- 
ily a church of God. While we do not believe it 
is every man's duty to go to China or Turkey or 
Persia as a missionary, we do believe, from Christ's 
command, that it is his duty to spread the good 
tidings wherever and whenever he can find oppor- 
tunity. God founded the Jewish nation that he 
might commit to them his oracles. Until Christ 
came, that revelation was sufficient for salvation. 
Christ established a new covenant, inaugurated a 
new era. Narrowness, separation, was the essence 
of Judaism. Universality, permeation, is the es- 
sence of Christianity. The force of Judaism was 
centripetal ; that of Christianity is centrifugal. 
" Get thee out of thy country, and I will make of 
thee a great nation," was the key-note of the old 
Dispensation. " Go ye into all the world and 
preach the Gospel to every creature " was the 
key-note of the new. Yet Judaism was as essen- 
tial as Christianity, was essential indeed to Chris- 
tianity, was Christianity. Judaism was the seed 
of which Christianity was the flower. Judaism 



158 SUMMER REST. 

was intensely local that Christianity might by and 
by be world-wide. Judaism went first through 
the deserts of the world preparing the way for 
Christianity ; and if at this day we are not subject 
to the same discipline, and amenable to the same 
laws as the Jews were, it is only because we have 
so profited by their lessons as to be prepared to 
enter an advanced class. Thus we hold the 
Old and the New Testament in equal reverence. 
Each is a revelation from God. But only the 
latter is binding on us, — and that only in such 
parts as concern us, — because only the latter 
was addressed to us. Neither the Old Testament 
nor the New is binding on us in those precepts 
which concern only the society to which they 
were addressed. Many things it is our duty to 
do which were enjoined upon the Jews ; as, for 
instance, to befriend the orphan and the widow ; 
but this is not our duty because the Jews were 
exhorted to justice and benevolence, but because 
the obligation is written on our hearts and con- 
firmed by the teachings of Christ. We have no 
need to resort to the Old Testament to learn our 
duty. It is far more clearly revealed in the New. 
The Old Testament is a sacred book, but it is not 
ours. It is a Divine revelation, but not to us. 
Moses belonged to the Jews, but we have Christ. 
Moses earnestly besought God to show him His 
glory, and received for answer, " Thou shalt see my 
back parts, but my face shall not be seen." Jesus 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 159 

Christ, the brightness of God's glory, and the ex- 
press image of His person, we have heard, we 
have seen with our eyes, we have looked upon, 
and our hands have handled. Shall we go back 
from the sunshine into the twilight? Shall we 
resort to the precepts and laws of the Old Testa- 
ment, framed for a people hardly snatched from 
idolatry, a people gross, sensual, ignorant, and 
stiff-necked, a people who had scarcely any spir- 
itual sense^ or any idea of future existence, or df 
inherent right and wrong, — we who live upon an 
earth warmed, softened, and spiritualized by eigh- 
teen centuries of Christian sunshine ? 

Yet just here rages the controversy regarding 
the Sabbath. Christians have universally relin- 
quished Judaism to the extent of giving up cir- 
cumcision, sacrifice, priesthood, and sanctuary, 
but there are many who retain the Sabbath on 
the ground that it is enjoined in the Fourth Com- 
mandment, and therefore of more force than the 
law to wear girdles of fine-twined linen. Thou- 
sands of injunctions concerning work and worship 
are labelled " ceremonial law," and very uncere- 
moniously hustled aside, while the " ten command- 
ments " are named " moral law," and reckoned 
still binding. But who made this distinction ? 
Where in the Bible do we find the Mosaic laws 
thus classified and disposed of? We affirm that 
it is done solely on human authority ; that the 
Bible countenances no such arrangement ; that, 



160 SUMMER REST, 

on the contrary, the whole Mosaic law, decalogue 
and all, was, by the coming of Christ, disannulled. 
We are no more under the law of the ten com- 
mandments than we are under the law of ablu- 
tions and fringes. Christ and his Apostles taught 
as clearly as it is possible to teach that the Mosaic 
law was superseded. They drew no dividing line 
between moral and ceremonial law, but dismissed 
the whole law as a thing of the past. 

What then ! are we at liberty to commit mur- 
der and adultery, to steal and covet and worship 
false gods? Yes, if these things are the law 
written on our hearts, if these things are enjoined 
in the Gospel, — if these things are the fulfilling 
of the law. For, let it be remembered, the old 
law was superseded, not by a worse, but by a bet- 
ter hope ; not because it w^as too strenuous, but 
because it was not strenuous enough ; not in that 
it was to be violated, but in that it had been ful- 
filled. One people among the peoples had been 
turned from the worship of false gods. Into their 
hard hearts had been drilled a belief in the ex- 
istence of one God, his concern in the affairs of 
men, his sovereignty, his justice, his mercy, his 
righteousness. They were taught that oppression 
and unchastity and idolatry were sins and crimes. 
The Mosaic law drew for the world the outline 
of a holy life. Then the world was ripe for 
further knowledge. Christ took the fair sketch 
and filled it in with tints of heavenly beauty. 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 161 

The words of the law passed away, that the spirit 
of the law might have free course. '' Thou shalt 
not kill," said the law. '' Whosoever is angry 
with his brother, without a cause, shall be in 
danger of the same judgment," said the spirit. 
" Thou shalt not commit adultery," said the law. 
" Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after 
her hath committed adultery with her already 
in his heart," said the spirit of the law. The 
people were astonished to hear such words, and 
for these eighteen hundred years they have not 
sufficiently recovered from their astonishment to 
believe them. To this day, Christian men have 
the veil upon their hearts, and the Ten Com- 
mandments read in the churches every Sabbath 
day. 

It is difficult and it is humiliating to cite proofs 
of these statements. It is humiliating, that, with 
the face of Christ shining upon us now these 
eighteen centuries, we should still be fumbling 
over the decalogue. It is humiliating, that per- 
sons living in this latest age of the Christian era 
should need just as strong argument, and just as 
earnest remonstrance, to keep them from turning 
again to the weak and beggarly elements, where- 
unto they desire again to be in bondage, as did 
persons of the first age. It is difficult to cite 
proof, for the whole New Testament is proof. 
The going out of the law of Moses, and the 
coming in of the law of Christ, is the burden of 



162 SUMMER REST, 

the Gospel. Christ announced it and his Apostles 
reiterated it. Again and again, with impassioned 
earnestness, with vehement logic, with figure and 
illustration, by precept and example, they labored 
to impress this truth upon their time, for all times. 
With steadfast hands, they tore away the scaffold- 
ing of the law, and displayed to mankind the 
beautiful edifice, which all the while had been 
slowly rising behind the once necessary and sym- 
mietrical, but now unnecessary, and therefore cum- 
brous and disfiguring framework. Law was to 
give place to love. 

At the outset of his ministry Christ, knowing 
what he was to do, forestalled the objections w^hich 
would be brought against him, and declared that he 
was not come to destroy the law or the prophets, 
but to fulfil. " One jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
pass from the law till all be fulfilled." ''The law 
and the prophets," he said to the Pharisees, " were 
until John : since that time the kingdom of God 
is preached." Yet, to guard against misapprehen- 
sion, he affirmed the next moment that it is easier 
for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the 
law to fail. How the law was to be fulfilled he 
explicitly told. When the lawyer asked him which 
was the great commandment, he replied, " Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This 
is the first and great commandment. And the 
second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neigh- 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 163 

bor as thyself. On these two commandments hang 
all the law and the prophets.'''^ Paul says that 
^'Christ is the end of the law for righteousness 
to every one that believeth." ''He that loveth 
another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou 
shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not 
bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet, and if 
there be any other commandment it is briefly com- 
prehended in this saying, namely. Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to 
his neighbor : therefore love is the fulfilling of the 
law." Is it the '' ceremonial law " of which Paul 
speaks? Again he says, illustrating his position 
from the case of a woman freed from her husband 
by his death, '' Now we are delivered from the 
law, that being dead wherein we were held ; that 
we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in 
the oldness of the letter. What shall we say 
then ? Is the law sin ? " That is, is it sinful ? 
Is it a bad law which must be broken? "God 
forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the 
law^ ; for I had not known lust except the law 
had said. Thou shalt not covet." (Is it '' the 
ceremonial " or the '' moral " law that says Thou 
shalt not covet?) No, declares Paul, the law is 
not sinful, '' the law is holy " as far as it goes, but 
there are certain things which " the law could not 
do, in that it was weak through the flesh," where- 
fore God sent his own Son, and the law of the 
spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us forever 



164 SUMMER REST. 

free from the law of sin and death. "There is 
verily a disannulling of the commandment going 
before, for the weakness and unprofitableness 
thereof. For the law made nothing perfect, but 
the bringing in of a better hope did." " For the 
priesthood being changed, there is made of neces- 
sity a change also of the law." " If ye be led by 
the Spirit, ye are not under the law." "The 
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suifer- 
ing, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem- 
perance : against such there is no law." "For 
I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I 
might" — not live in sin to my heart's content, 
but — "that I might live unto God." "Tell 
me," he cries to the stiff-necked Galatian Jews 
who found it so hard to give up their traditions 
and their pride of Abraham, — " tell me, ye that 
desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the 
law ? For it is written, that Abraham had two 
sons ; the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free 

woman Which things are an allegory: for 

these are the two covenants ; the one from the 
Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which 
is Agar, .... and answereth to Jerusalem which 
now is, and is in bondage with her children. But 
Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the 

mother of us all So then, brethren, we are 

not children of the bond-woman, but of the free. 
Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith 
Christ has made us free, and be not entangled 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 165 

again with the yoke of bondage For, breth- 
ren, ye have been called unto liberty ; only use 
not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by 
love serve one another. For all the law is ful- 
filled in one word, even in this. Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor as thyself. .... Bear ye one an- 
other's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." 
'' If the first covenant had been faultless, then 
should no place have been sought for the sec- 
ond. For, finding fault with them, he saith, 
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I 
will make a new covenant with the house of Is- 
rael For this is the covenant that I will 

make I will put my laws into their mind, 

and write them [not on tables of stone, but] in 
their hearts. .... In that he saith, A new cov- 
enant, he hath made the first old. Now that 
which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish 
away." 

Can language be more perspicuous ? 

But it was exceedingly difficult to convince the 
Jews that Christ really had broken down the mid- 
dle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, and 
abolished even the law of commandments. Nor 
need we be surprised that they should look with 
the utmost reluctance upon the abolition of their 
law, and with the utmost disfavor upon any which 
should be brought forward. The law was to the 
Jews their badge of honor, the token of their place 
in the vanguard of the world. They charged Ste- 



166 SUMMER REST. 

phen with designing to change the customs which 
Moses delivered them. They accused Paul of 
teaching the Jews to forsake Moses, and not to 
walk after the customs. But while Paul was care- 
ful to walk orderly and keep the law, not objecting 
even to vows and purifications, he and the other 
apostles steadfastly maintained that the Gentiles 
should be required to observe no such thing. 
When Peter separated himself from the Gentiles, 
through fear of the Jews, Paul withstood him to 
the face because he was to be blamed. "Why 
compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the 
Jews ? . . . . Knowing that a man is not justi- 
fied by the works of the law, but by the faith of 

Jesus Christ Wherefore, then, serveth the 

law ? [Of what use is the law ?] It was added 
because of transgressions, till the end should come 

to whom the promise was made Wherefore 

the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto 
Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But 
after that faith is come, we are no longer under a 
schoolmaster." When Paul and Barnabas were 
teaching in Antioch, certain meji came down from 
Judaea and preached to the new converts, ' Except 
ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye 
cannot be saved.' After much dissension and dis- 
putation, a delegation was sent to Jerusalem where 
also certain partially converted Pharisees main- 
tained that it was needful to circumcise and to 
command the Gentiles to keep the law of Moses. 



GILFILLAJSrS SABBATH. 167 

Therefore a council of the apostles and elders was 
convened to consider the matter. And when there 
had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said 
unto them, 'Men and brethren, ye know how that 
a good while ago God made choice apaong us, that 
the Gentiles, by my mouth, should hear the word 
of the Gospel, and believe. And God, which 
knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving 
them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us : 
and put no difference between us and them, puri- 
fying their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why 
tempt ye God to put a yohe upon the neck of the 
disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able 
to hear?^ Then Paul and Barnabas confirmed 
Peter's words by relating the wonders God had 
wrought among the Gentiles. Afterwards James 
gave his sentence, and the result of council was 
framed into an encyclical letter: "The apostles, 
and elders, and brethren send greeting unto the 
brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and 
Syria and Cilicia. Forasmuch as we have heard 
that certain which went out from us have troubled 
you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye 
must be circumcised and keep the law ; to whom 

we gave no such commandment It seemed 

good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon 
you no greater burden than these necessary things : 
That ye abstain from meat offered to idols, and 
from blood, and from things strangled, and from 
fornication ; from which, if ye keep yourselves, ye 
shall do well. Fare ye well." 



168 SUMMER REST. 

As the greater includes the less, the abrogation 
of the Mosaic law, is the abrogation of the Sab- 
batic law so far as the latter depends for its force 
upon its incorporation with the former. If it were 
instituted prior to and distinct from the Mosaic 
law, or if it were exempted from the disannuUing 
of the latter, we may still be under a Sabbath 
law. We have only to call upon those who main- 
tain the existence of such a law to produce it. 
Until they do this, we affirm that it cannot be 
done. To say, with Mr. Gilfillan, that Abraham 
and Noah could not have been the good men 
they were without it may answer every purpose 
in the pulpit, but has no foundation in logic. 
There is no such law, no semblance of such law, 
and no reference to such law in the Bible, until 
the Israelites were assembled in the wilderness 
of Sin. Then we have a circumstantial account 
of a mandate issued to them, together with the 
reasons for such issue, which mandate about a 
fortnight afterwards was framed into a law and 
incorporated into a code. The story is simple and 
natural. The Lord was about to rain bread from 
heaven, and, for the express purpose " that I may 
prove them, whether they will walk in my law 
or no," they were to gather a certain quantity 
on five days, to double it on the sixth, and to 
gather none at all on the seventh. The experi- 
ment was entirely successful. Some obeyed the 
precept and some disobeyed. Some gathered too 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH, 169 

much on the five days, and some attempted to 
gather on the seventh, exciting the indignant 
question, " How long refuse ye to keep my com- 
mandments and my laws ? " The people, child- 
like and unquestioning, obeyed and disobeyed ac- 
cording to their several dispositions. The rulers, 
further advanced in mental training, received an 
explanation from Moses. '^ To-morrow is the rest 
of the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord." Soon after- 
w^ards it was generalized into a law, " Remember 
the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." Mr. Gilfillan 
advances this narrative, to show that there had 
been a " preceding institution of the Sabbath." 
We adduce it as the account of the original insti- 
tution of the Sabbath. Mr. Gilfillan reads it, and 
infers from it that "if we would not impute to a 
sacred writer literary inability or intentional de- 
ception, we have no alternative but to believe 
that the Sabbath was instituted at the creation." 
We read it, and accept neither alternative. 

The only text cited in proof of a pre-existent 
law is Genesis ii. 2, 3, which gives no law to 
man, and m^kes no allusion either to law or man. 
It is the statement of a fact concerning God, 
which we but faintly comprehend ; it states no fact 
concernino; man. God's Sabbath existed then, but 
He did not then give it to man. What that Sab- 
bath was we do not know. We do not even 
know what was meant by the term day^ some 
supposing it to be the present day of twenty-four 

8 



170 SUMMER REST. 

hours, and others (begging Mr. Gilfillan's pardon) 
equally eminent in Christian knowledge, candor, 
and clear-sightedness supposing it to stretch over 
vast ages, and to measure in its going the unseen, 
slow processes of geologic change. And as th^ 
work-days of God are to us uncomprehended, 
and for the present incomprehensible, so must the 
Sabbath of His sohtude be. The loving Creator 
bends low to our human speech, and we learn 
w^hat we may of His character and His ways ; 
but with it all, the wisest among us, as well as the 
little child, can but slightly know the nature of 
His work. His rest. His blessing. The Bible 
comes to us out of the great deep of a mysterious 
past. It leaves us on the shore of a mysterious 
future ; and though its promises, precepts, and 
examples are so plain that the wayfaring man, 
sthough a fool, need not err therein, yet the shad- 
ows of its infinite source linger still upon its open- 
ing pages, and the glories of the waiting heavens 
fling a bewildering radiance upon its closing lines. 
It is interesting to compare the two versions of 
the ten commandments given, one in the twentieth 
chapter of Exodus, the other in the fifth chapter 
of Deuteronomy. The first gives as a reason of 
the fourth commandment, " For in six davs the 
Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that 
in them is, and rested the seventh day ; wherefore 
the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed 
it." The second version makes no reference to 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 171 

the creation, but says, " And remember that thou 
wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the 
Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a 
mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm : there- 
fore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep 
the Sabbath-day." 

Here are two entirely distinct reasons given for 
the same command. It may be said that the one 
does not exclude the other ; that both may have 
been given on the mountain, though only one is 
mentioned at a time ; but Moses, after reciting the 
commandments to the people according to the 
second version, immediately adds, '^ These words 
tlie Lord spake unto all your assembly in the 
mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, 
and of the thick darkness, with a great voice : and 
lie added no more : and he wrote them in two ta- 
bles of stone, and delivered them unto me." 

The preface to the two versions is identical. 
'' I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee 
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bond- 
age." The captivity in Egypt was the great ca- 
lamity of the Hebrews : the deliverance from that 
captivity the great event in their history. One 
day in seven consecrated to rest would be an 
appropriate memento of their redemption from 
the unceasing toil of slavery. Why it is, that, in 
spite of the preponderance of evidence in favor of 
the second version, we have almost universally dis- 
carded it and adopted the first, it is difficult to con- 



172 SUMMER REST. 

jecture, unless it be that even the most thought- 
less among us knows at once that he never was a 
servant in Egypt, and therefore the absurdity of 
applying the commandment to an American, or to 
any one but a Jew, becomes at once palpable. 

We are dealing with facts, not inferences nor 
opinions. It is a fact that we have in the Bible 
an account of a Sabbath-day set apart in the wil- 
derness of Sin, and a Sabbath law promulgated 
from Sinai, and we have no account of either be- 
fore this time. This is enough. We are not con- 
cerned with what may have happened, but only 
with what Moses has recorded as having actually 
happened. But Nehemiah gives stronger proof 
than this negative testimony. When the children 
of Israel kept their solemn fast, the Levites stood 
upon the stairs and publicly recounted the good- 
ness of God to them : " Thou camest down also 
upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from 
heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and 
true laws, good statutes and commandments ; and 
madest known unto them thy holy Sahhathy If the 
Sabbath had been a world-old institution, could 
God have made it known to them on Sinai ? But 
Mr. Gilfillan says : " To insist that such language 
establishes the origination of the Sabbath at the 
time to which it refers requires us no less to 
believe, that all the other statutes mentioned in 
connection with that institution were then also 
enacted. According to this doctrine, sacrifices, 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH, 173 

the decalogue, and circumcision must have then in 
the first instance been appointed Circum- 
cision, Hke the Sabbath, is mentioned as given at 
the commencement of the Levitical dispensation : 
' Moses gave unto you circumcision ; not because 
it is of Moses, but of the fathers.' " The fact that 
these glaring fallacies have escaped the eyes of the 
Sabbath Committee must be our sole excuse for 
pointing them out. Without such positive proof 
we should assume that no living man, save Mr. 
Gilfillan, could fail to see that no statute is men- 
tioned in connection with the Sabbath. The Sab- 
bath is singled out from all, and it alone is said 
to have been made hnown upon Mount Sinai. A 
law may be commanded again and again, a judg- 
ment may be many times repeated ; but an insti- 
tution with which we have been familiar from our 
infancy cannot rightly be said to be made known 
to us in our manhood. " Circumcision, like the 
Sabbath, is mentioned as given," says Mr. Gil- 
fillan. " Circumcision, unlike the Sabbath," he 
should have said. This is a sufficient answer. It 
may not be amiss, however, to show Mr. Gilfillan 
and his coadjutors that it does not at all follow, 
because good statutes and commandments were 
given for the first time from Mount Sinai, that 
none were ever given before. He misuses a 
particular for a universal. " Thou gavest them 
(some) right judgments and true laws," said the 
Levites. Therefore, '-'- Thou gavest them (all) 



174 SUMMER REST, 

right judgments and true laws," says Mr. Gilfillan. 
Althouo:h circumcision and sacrifices had been Ions; 
employed, Mr. Gilfillan will hardly deny that 
many, perhaps the great bulk of precepts, given 
upon Mount Sinai, were given for the first time ; 
so that even on that ground the Sabbath may have 
been among them, while from the popular use of 
" make known," it must have been. That the act 
of giving is generally limited to the time^entioned 
in connection with it is evident from the very text 
instanced to prove the contrary. " Moses gave 
unto you circumcision," said Christ, apparently 
using the word Moses in a general sense for the 
law, but seeing the possibility of misapprehension, 
he immediately corrects himself, " not because it 
is of Moses, but of the fathers." Without that 
correction he might be supposed to say that cir- 
cumcision was of Moses. As the Sabbath is men- 
tioned without any such qualifying clause, we do 
suppose that it was of Moses and not of the fathers. 
Finding, then, that the New Testament abro- 
gates the whole code of laws in which alone any 
Sabbath law is recorded, we infer that the Sab- 
bath law is abrogated. Confirmation of this is fur- 
nished, if confirmation be needed, by the unbroken 
silence of the New Testament regarding Sabbath- 
breaking. Throughout the Old Testament, though 
its precepts grow less and less positive and more 
and more spiritual, approaching the time of Christ, 
there are ever-recurring warnings, promises, and 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 175 

exhortations concerning the Sabbath. In the 
New Testament it is enjoined upon neither Jew 
nor Gentile. Every reference made to the Sab- 
bath is made in rebuke of those who demand its 
observance or complain of its violation. Every 
allusion either lessens its stringency or wholly 
destroys its force. Nor are we left to mere in- 
ference or negative testimony. Christ issued 
commands which could not be obeyed without 
disregarding not merely Pharisaic traditions, but 
Mosaic laws, regarding the Sabbath. He com- 
manded the impotent man on the Sabbath-day 
to take up his bed and walk ; and the Jews had 
the law on their side when they objected, " It is 
not lawful for thee to carry thy bed," since the 
command, " Thou shalt not do any work," had 
been explained by God's own words through Jere- 
miah, '' Take heed to yourselves, and bear no bur- 
den on the Sabbath-day." Paul expressly transfers 
the whole matter out of the sphere of Divine com- 
mand into the sphere of private judgment. " Who 
art thou that judgest another man's servant ? To 
his own master he standeth or falleth. One man 
esteemeth one day above another; another esteem- 
eth every day alike. Let every man be fully per- 
suaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the 
day, regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that re- 
gardeth not the day, unto the Lord he doth not 
regard it." Christ, he said, hath blotted out " the 
handwriting of ordinances that was against us, 



176 SUMMER REST. 

which was contrary to us, and took it out of the 

way, naihng it to his cross Let no man 

therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in 
respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or 
of the Sabbath-days, which are a shadow of things 
to come ; but the body is of Christ." 

The Christian world has universally recognized 
the abrogation of the Sabbath. Nowhere does it 
confer upon the seventh day any distinction above 
the other days. In this it is right. 

But it has widely and strenuously sought to 
transfer to the first day of the week the duties and 
obligations of the seventh day ; to extend to all 
Christians forever what was allotted only to the 
Jews for a limited period. It is not content to 
rest on the proper ground of human judgment, 
but with presumptuous hand it brings forward a 
" Thus saith the Lord." Nay, it does worse than 
this. It not only transfers the commandment, but 
it tampers with it. The law says, " Thou shalt 
not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy 
daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, 
nor thy cattle." Its modern substitute says, " Thou 
mayst do some work, in fact a good deal, espe- 
cially thy maid-servant. Thy cattle may work 
enough to carry thee to church, either to preach 
or to hear a sermon, though thou art quite able to 
walk, or couldst have made the journey the even- 
ing before. But thou shalt in no wise wander in 
the fields, or drive across the country unless thou 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 177 

have a meeting-house in view. And for the most 
part thou shalt go to church all day, and devote 
what time is left to Sunday school and evening* 
meeting." 

So the Christian world picks to pieces the Fourth 
Commandment, separates such part as it is con- 
venient to observe from the parts it is convenient 
to disregard, adds thereto whatever seems good in 
its eyes, and sets up this nondescript animal with a 
loud cry, '*^ These be thy gods, O Israel ! " 

In this it is wrong, — teaching for doctrine the 
commandments of men. But though the men who 
issue these commandments be numerous, learned, 
and powerful, we can only say, " When for the 
time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that 
one teach you again, which be the first principles 
of the oracles of God ! " Yea, though an angel 
from heaven preach any other gospel than that 
which Christ and the Apostles preached, let 
him be accursed. We call no man master, for 
Christ is our Master. Let those then who would 
graft the Jewish Sabbath upon our Christian sys- 
tem produce their Divine authority for doing so. 
We have chapter and verse for the enforcement 
of the Sabbath upon the Hebrews. We have 
chapter and verse for the abrogation of the Sab- 
bath. Let us have chapter and verse for the 
establishment of the Christian Sabbath. Until 
this is done, we confidently affirm that it can- 
not be done. 

8* L 



178 SUMMER REST, 

The few instances, In the New Testament, in 
which the first day of the week is mentioned, 
make against, rather than for, its Sabbatic claim. 
When the Sabbath-day was in force, it was called 
alw^ays the Sabbath-day, not the Seventh day. If 
the first day were meant to be the heir of all the 
glories, the duties, and the mementos of the 
seventh, would it not also have inherited the 
name ? Is it probable that so great a change 
would have been made, with no change of name 
or addition of title ? 

Shall we then close our churches, open our 
workshops, and reduce our Sunday to the level 
of Monday ? Most assuredly not. 

First, though the laws made for Hebrews alone 
are not binding on Americans, yet these things 
are written for our admonition. The more we 
learn of God and of His world the more surely 
we see that His commands are not mere arbitrary 
mandates, but wise provisions for human needs. 
Many directions, whose bearings are hidden from 
the common sight, science and experience recog- 
nize as wise social or sanitary regulations. When, 
therefore, God commanded the Jews to refrain 
from labor one day in seven, we do not regard it 
as an indifferent matter. We do not say it might 
as well have been one day in three, or one day in 
eight, had God so chosen, nor do we think that 
God considered a day of idleness and uselessness 
the best way of commemorating his creative sover- 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 179 

eignty. We regard it rather as a significant hint, 
that the human being is so organized as to need, 
besides his regularly recurring sleep, one seventh 
part of time for rest. We consider the time thus 
devoted to rest as not thrown away, but most wise- 
ly employed. This view is confirmed by our own 
personal experience and observation, and by those 
of many wise and good men. We believe the 
time will come when it will be universally adopted, 
— when the world will see that its work is sooner 
and better done by six days of labor and one of 
rest, than by unintermitting toil. This truth, 
however, if it be a truth, belongs to the domain 
of science. It is only hinted at, not laid down, 
in revelation. On strictly reasonable grounds, we 
infer it to be the duty of every man, a duty 
founded in his nature and recognized by God, 
to rest from labor one seventh part of the time, 
and so to arrange his affairs that those depend- 
ent upon or ministering to him shall be able 
to command an equal rest. And as this can be 
most effectually done when all act in harmony, 
and as the first day of the week has been for ages, 
and is now most nearly redeemed from labor and 
consecrated to rest, it is proper to adopt this as 
the rest-day, thus at once consulting one's own 
convenience and paying one's deference to the 
world's wisdom. If this rest is allowed to be for 
the general good, it is a fit subject of legislation, 
to the extent of protecting men in their right of 



180 SUMMER REST, 

rest. And though we may not and do not, by 
legislation, force upon any man any religious ob- 
servance of the day, we may by legislation pre- 
vent him from hindering others in their religious 
observances. 

But this, though a just and healthy view as far 
as it goes, is a low and material one. Man's 
highest rest is not in inactivity. The world is 
weary through sin, and her children, over-worked, 
sometimes need too much on Sunday the mere 
rest of inactivity. Many more need the day for 
closer and more tender intercourse with wife and 
child than the working-days can give. They 
need it for calmness and reflection, for friendly 
interchange of thought and feeling, for the up- 
springing of love, that, repressed too much, de- 
cays ; for a fuller development of all the gentleness 
and amenities of life, for a little curve and verdure 
to soften the harshness of a too severe destiny. 
But especially and universally we need the op- 
portunity of the day for direct and avowed social 
worship. Honest work is as good in its way as 
worship, but it is not worship. Love works 
mightily for its object, but none the less it craves 
direct expression. Knightly feats will never super- 
sede the hunger for sweet phrase. Words alone 
are nothing, but works alone can never give 
heart's-ease. There is not one stone upon another 
of the Temple wherein the Most High once de- 
lighted to dwell ; nevertheless, the Apostle ex- 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 181 

horted his converts not to forsake the assembling 
of themselves together. There is neither priest 
nor sacrifice ; but as children of a common family, 
we need to go up with the multitude and pay our 
offerings of broken, and contrite, and therefore 
happy hearts. We need to recognize the kinship 
of man, and kindle in our souls the fire of sympa- 
thy that comes only from contact. Rich and poor, 
we should meet together in the great congrega- 
tions, and, forgetting all minor distinctions, bow 
our knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and 
earth is named. ** 

We are not bound to this weekly worship because 
the Apostles commanded it to their congregations, 
nor because the disciples were wont to assemble 
on the first day of the week, though these are 
considerations which should influence us; but be- 
cause our inmost natures demand it. The Apos- 
tles directed weekly contributions and a weekly 
participation in the Lord's Supper, and sanctioned, 
at least, a social life which held all things common ; 
none of which things we do. But because our 
hearts burn within us to preach righteousness in 
the great congregation, to declare the faithfulness 
and salvation of God, to celebrate his loving- 
kindness and his truth, we go up to the house 
of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a 
multitude that keep holy-day. 

But more than this: If the Sabbath of the Jews 



182 SUMMER REST, 

was instituted not only for the purpose of giving 
them needed rest, but of commemorating the crea- 
tion, how much greater a cause have we to com- 
memorate ! Redemption outshines creation. God 
spake, and the world was made : He died before 
it could be redeemed. Jesus Christ was conceived 
of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suf- 
fered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, 
and buried. The third day, as it began to dawn 
toward the first day of the week, he came up from 
the grave, scattered the darkness and despair, and 
for all and for ever brought life and immortality to 
light. Did God sanctify the seventh day because 
that in it he rested from all the work which he 
created and made ? Let us, for love, not duty, 
sanctify this infinitely more blessed day, this first 
day of the week, on which was sealed the truth of 
our redemption from death and sin. So long as 
the stable earth blossoms under the tread of human 
feet, let human hearts celebrate this glorious day 
which saw the Lord arise. It is no Sabbath of 
restriction and penalty, but the Redeemer's gift, 
sacred and over-full with joy of birthday and 
thanksgiving. The bud of every anniversary' 
flowers in the bright hope of this weekly festival. 
It is a day for congratulation and jubilee, for songs 
of praise and adoration, — a day of triumph and of 
victory. Day of days, day of days, that saw the 
Lord arise ! Never enough to be exulted over and 
rejoiced in. Let thy mountains and hills break 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH, 183 

forth Into singing, O Earth, that thrilled once to 
the tread of the Redeemer's feet, and let all the 
trees of the field clap their hands. Rejoice, O man, 
forever exalted in lending thy form to the Son of 
God, rejoice on this His resurrection-morn. Go 
up into His courts with psalms and hymns and 
spiritual songs. Let the whole earth be garlanded 
with gladness and the breath of her life ascend, a 
sweet incense to the Holy One, the Blessed, the 
Beloved, our Friend, our Redeemer. 

Is this a day to wrangle about? Is this a day 
to be prescribed with ought^ and must^ and shall? 
Strange we do not see that such support is fatal ! 
Men may be exhorted to rest on that day, as they 
may be exhorted to cleanliness and prudence ; but 
its worth as a day of sacredness and worship is in 
its spontaneity. Neither Christ nor his Apostles 
ever commanded to keep the Sabbath-day. They 
strove to rescue the life from the dominion of sin, 
to lift it into the light ; and when the heart is 
right, w^hen the face is turned toward God, and the 
mind is fixed on God, and love is the universal law, 
will there be any trouble about Sunday? 

Is it said that we have not yet arrived at that 
point? that men are not yet spiritual enough to 
dispense with external restrictions ? Perhaps so ; 
but the Maker of men would be likely to know 
when they are ready to ascend from one plane 
to another, and if it seemed to him that, after four 
thousand years of precept and practice, they had 



184 SUMMER REST. 

become sufficiently rooted and grounded in the 
ideas of Divine sovereignty and human duty, of 
obedience, chastity, justice, and what may be called 
the outside virtues, to be ready to be rooted and 
grounded in love, is it w^orth while for us to say, 
*' Not so. Lord"? There is so much violence in 
the earth, that we can hardly help questioning, 
sometimes, whether it would not have been wiser 
in God to have delayed his work of redemption, 
to have kept us under the stress of external law a 
few centuries longer, till the fierceness of our man- 
ners should become a little more softened, and our 
hard hearts mellowed to receive the truth. But 
if God does not know times and seasons, no one 
does ; and the question is, not what it would have 
been well for him to do, but what he did do.. If 
he saw fit to abolish the law of ordinances, and 
trust to the law of love, the part of faith and mod- 
esty is to do the best we can without the one, not 
to attempt to reinstate it, and thus insult the other. 
It is presumption, not humility, it is rebellion, not 
loyalty, that would set up what God has put down. 
But, it is asked, if Sunday rest is granted to be 
for man's physical good, and if Sunday worship 
is allowed to be not only a source of spiritual 
benefit, but the natural outgrowth of a high spir- 
itual condition, why attempt to pull down the 
strongest props of the Sabbath ? If the noblest 
life will give just such a Sabbath as the Sab- 
bath preachers desire, why not have the Sabbath 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 185 

preached ? If the prevalent behef be not strictly 
scriptural, yet if it tends to useful ends, why dis- 
turb it? We answer. Because truth is truth, — 
too sacred and steadfast a thing to be warped to 
any man's uses ; because the wrath of God is re- 
vealed from heaven against all ungodliness and 
unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in 
unrighteousness ; because to fortify the truth by a 
" thus saith the Lord," when the Lord has not 
spoken, is to change the truth of God into a lie. 
So doing we take a false position, and foolish as 
false. Our strength is made weakness, and our 
weakness wickedness. Men have an instinct of 
the falsehood, and, not discerning the truth, cast 
away both together and profane their own souls. 
Every sermon that is preached, and every tract 
that is issued directly inculcating as a Bible law 
the observance of the Sabbath-day, is not only 
useless, but mischievous. It calls attention away 
from sin, which God hates, to a rite which He has 
discarded. Instead of exhorting people to keep 
the Sabbath-day holy, we should exhort them to 
keep their own hearts holy. Sabbath-keeping as 
Sabbath-keeping is dangerous. It tends to formal- 
ism, not to Christianity. What saith the Apostle 
Paul? It is the one exception to the annulling 
referred to before. "The law is not made for a 
righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, 
for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and 
profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of 



186 SUMMER REST, 

mothers, for man-slayers." Remember this, you 
who enforce the law. When you class yourselves 
with man-slayers and murderers, when you betake 
yourself to the law, you count the blood of the cov- 
enant an unholy thing, and crucify the Son of God 
afresh. Those who will not give themselves up 
to the Gospel are indeed under the law, but-for 
condemnation, not for salvation. For what the law 
could not do before Christ came, it can never do. 
To adopt Judaism is to reject Christ. And what 
is it to reject Christ? 

A Sabbath imposed from without is an easier 
thing to preach and to practice than a Sabbath 
springing from the soul, its ornament and delight. 
The one is obvious, exact, tangible. It gathers 
religious duty into a visible shape and a limited 
time, and does not interfere with the other six 
days. It lies on the surface of life, and does not 
meddle with its depths. It gives rise to no doubts, 
and demands no nice distinctions. The morning 
and the evening are the first day, and there is an 
end of the matter. 

But to keep the soul's Sabbath is a work of 
quite another quality. It is indefinite, exacting, 
unending. It goes down into the deep places, and 
concerns the thoughts and intents of the heart. It 
is not satisfied with one day's prayer and praise, 
but it lays hold on every day, and considers noth- 
ing human foreign to itself. Its Divine radiance 
shines down through all the week, and every day 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH, 187 

is flooded with the heavenly Hght. Preach the 
gospel of pure hearts, not of new moons and Sab- 
bath-days. Preach the gospel of a holy life, and 
let every man judge for himself what best helps 
him to lead a holy life. Cease the attempt to es- 
tablish what God has overthrown, and show the 
people that without faith it is impossible to please 
Him. Show them that it is lying lips, impure 
thoughts, dishonest gains, unpaid debts, unkind 
words, materialism, and sensuality, and selfish- 
ness, that are an abomination to the Lord, not 
Sunday walks. Instead of imposing Sabbath-keep- 
ing upon the ungodly, show the ungodly that no 
Sabbath is possible to them. There is no such 
thing as keeping the Sabbath unless the heart keeps 
it ; and when the heart keeps holy-day all days are 
holy. 

I. Well? 

H, Well it is then. 

L Thank you. Do you think it sounds lordly 
enough ? 

H. Lordly? 

I, Why yes. It must have a certain magiste- 
rial weight to secure confidence, — a sort of high- 
and-mighty-ness. I should not want it to sound 
like me. 

H, Like whom, then ? 

/. O, no one in particular. Like ministers. 
Like theological authorities. Has it in the least 



188 SUMMER REST. 

the air of Professor Park or Scott's Bible? Do 
you suppose the world can be — 

R. Wheedled. 

I. Well, wheedled, into thinking it came from 
Andover or Princeton, if it should be printed in 
any of the reviews ? I have made a most unspar- 
ing use of " we." 

jET. After mature reflection, with a glass of high 
magnifying power, an experienced and skilful stu- 
dent of style might perhaps detect certain minute 
points or pellicles which would lead him to suspect 
that Professor Park did not write it. But it is not 
the fault of the " we." That is a great stroke. It 
comes in now and then w^ith immense force. I 
don't hesitate to say you have added a hundred 
per cent to your substance of doctrine by that 
shrewd little arrangement. 

I. And it did not seem so very long did it, when 
you had once fairly grappled with it ? 

JE[. Not so long as if there had been a dozen 
pages more. But have you not rather laid your- 
self open to the charge of slighting the Old Tes- 
tament? I suppose you do not mean to dis- 
courage an acquaintance with it. 

I. Surely not. It is the best book we have next 
to the New Testament, — profitable for doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in right- 
eousness. 

Why, it is just like the Mammoths and the Ple- 
siosaurians and the Megatheriums. We study them 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 189 

with intense interest. The knowledge enlarges 
our minds : we learn something of the laws of 
life, and are more deeply impressed with the 
power and wisdom! and goodness of God. But 
when we wish to find how to manage our sheep 
and cows we go to the Massachusetts Ploughman 
and the New England Farmer. It is harnessing 
the mastodons to our hay-carts that makes the^ 
trouble. It was yoking the Plesiosaurians to our 
ploughs that fastened American Slavery upon 
Moses. The Christian conscience of the country 
would not suffer it to remain there ; but it did 
so at the expense of its logic. So far as a pre- 
cept goes, I am just as much commanded to pin 
my servant's ear to the door with an awl as I am 
to keep the Sabbath-day. Rightly understood, the 
rules which God gave regarding Hebrew slavery 
show His goodness just as clearly as the Fourth 
Commandment. Both were given in love and 
care for human welfare, not with a selfish regard 
for his own will and pleasure, or with an unjust 
disregard of the rights or pleasure of any. Wrong- 
ly understood, both may be wrested over to the 
side of injustice. 

H. Yes, and we are too apt to look upon the 
Jewish Sabbath as something hard, rigid, and 
unpleasant, whereas it was a mark of thoughtful 
tenderness on God's part. He imposed no onerous 
duty. The sole thing he insisted on was rest for 
man and beast. Mindful too of the lowly, he pro- 



190 SUMMER REST. 

vides " that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant 
may rest as well as thou." In fact, I suspect the 
Jewish Sabbath was much more a holiday than is 
generally supposed. 

I, It turns on what was the meaning to the 
Jews of the word " holy." 

IT. They were forbidden to work, but I do not 
find anywhere that they were forbidden to play 
upon the holy day. Nehemiah helps us to an un- 
derstanding of the word. When he was recon- 
structing Israel he read the law to the people — 

J, Yes, and that was not all ; for he read it 
distinctly, he takes care to tell us, and gave the 
sense, and caused them to understand the reading. 
That is something worth while. 

IT. And then he told them, " This day is holy 
unto the Lord your God." How were they to 
spend a holy day ? " Go your way, eat the fat, 
and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them 
for whom nothing is prepared : for this day is holy 
unto our Lord : neither be ye sorry ; for the joy 
of the Lord is your strength." 

I, Why, it was a sort of Thanksgiving Day. 

J5r. The people made it so, certainly, for they 
all " went their way to eat, and to drink, and to 
send portions, and to make great mirth^ because 
they had understood the words that were declared 
unto them." 

I. There ! now you see what comes of having 
people understand the Bible instead of merely 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 191 

reading it. If we understood what we read, we 
should be as mirthful as they. But how Jonathan 
Edwards would have quarrelled with Nehemiah 
for such monstrous laxity. Do you remember 
one of his seven hundred or so good resolutions 
was, " Never to utter anything that is sportive, 
or matter of laughter, on the Lord's Day " ? 

H. I dare say Edwards and Nehemiah have 
talked the matter over since and come to a better 
understanding. But it is significant that all the 
examples of Sabbath-breaking in the Bible — at 
least I remember no others — are of work done on 
the Sabbath. There is no example of its violation 
by any kind of amusement. 

L There is not much in the Bible about play- 
ing, any way. 

S. No. There is a passage in Jeremiah where 
the Lord says, " but hallow the Sabbath-day, to 
do no work therein " ; as if the abstaining from 
work was hallowing it. 

L I think we fall into the same mistake about 
the Puritan Sunday that we do about the Jewish 
Sabbath. I do not believe it was nearly as tire- 
some, nor the Puritans themselves nearly as mo- 
rose, as they are often supposed to be. I have 
seen a good deal of that part of it that has de- 
scended to us, and I never found it tiresome. It 
has only pleasant associations for me. 

H. Doubtless its character would depend a good 
deal on individuals. It would bear harder on 



192 SUMMER REST, 

some than on others, and would be a severer thing 
in some famihes than in others. 

I notice you have spoken as if the New Testa- 
ment were not always binding on us. 

L Its principles are always binding on us, but 
it belongs to ourselves to adjust our practice to 
those principles. We all do this. It is only 
when we say we do it that objections are raised. 
Many commands of Christ Christians accept, 
others they reject, and others they profess to obey 
only in part. They hold as a reserved right the 
application of his principles. ChrisJ: bade, ''Love 
thy neighbor as thyself." "We obey him after 
a fashion. He bade also, " Swear not at all," 
which we heed not at all. He says again, " Pro- 
vide neither scrip for your journey, neither two 
coats, neither shoes." We do or do not, accord- 
ing to our convenience. All I say is, if one man 
uses his judgment to disregard one precept, he has 
no right to forbid another man to use his judgment 
in disregarding another. Still less has he a right 
to object to our saying that we ought to use our 
judgment in determining what part of Christ's 
teachings were meant for us. What is true of 
Christ's teachings is, of course, true of his Apostles' 
teachings. They applied the Gospel to the society 
of Rome and Corinth and Galatia under the em- 
perors. We have to apply it to America under 
presidents. To know what they, divinely inspired, 
did is a great help in deciding what we ought to 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 193 

do, but it does not at all dispense with our own 
judgment. And if Saint Paul were now living, 
no doubt he would be the very first to condemn 
this bhnd adherence to the letter of his epistles, 
and the blind violation of their spirit, which has 
wrought so much disaster to the best interests of 
man. But as with the teachings of Christ so with 
those of the Apostles and of other sacred writers, 
however strenuously we insist on adherence to the 
letter, in our practice we consult only tradition, 
our own will, or prejudice, or judgment. Cer- 
tain passages we take literally, and certain others 
figuratively or spiritually, with no guide but our 
own judgment, and often not even that ; we 
simply go with our denomination. Certain passa- 
ges we take with qualifications and certain others 
without. But if a person, in the use of his judg- 
ment or following his denomination, makes a dif- 
ferent classification from ours, him we oppose, and 
it shall go hard but we call names, — "ration- 
alist" or "neologist." 

H. Yes. I remember a good illustration. One 
of our ablest Orthodox writers, a few days ago, in 
reviewing Dr. Bushnell's last book, charges that 
his reduction of the Biblical doctrine of the Devil 
to a mythical personification of evil, and of the 
account of the fall to a poetic representation, ad- 
mits a principle of interpretation fatal alike to the 
historical and the moral weight of the Scriptures. 
He quite overlooks the fact that Dr. Bushnell does 

9 M 



194 SUMMER REST, 

not admit the destroying monster. It was there 
before. In fact, the Devil gets into the garden 
only by a figure. In the original narrative he is 
not once mentioned. It is a serpent, and noth- 
ing else ; a beast of the field. If we can figure 
the serpent into the Devil, why can we not figure 
the Devil into evil ? There is not nearly so broad 
a gulf between the last two as between the first 
two. 

J. You know Saint John speaks of " that old 
serpent, called the Devil." 

II. I don't know that he means this old serpent, 
though he probably does, but he calls him also the 
great dragon, and the whole is the description of a 
great wonder that appeared in heaven. It is all a 
figure or vision, and seems rather to indicate that 
the account in Genesis may also be an allegory. 
Certainly the flaming sword of the first book of the 
Bible sounds as mythic as the scarlet woman of 
the last ; and surely, too, the farther back we go 
into the night of time, the more we look for alle- 
gory. It is no more literal to say '' the serpent 
said unto the woman " than " this is my body," 
and it is just as natural for human flesh to be 
changed into bread as for a snake to use human 
speech. It is a merely arbitrary rule that com- 
mands a mythical interpretation in one place and 
forbids it in another, on the ground of the fatality 
of mythical interpretation. 

But come, here is another point. How do you 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH, 195 

account for the fact, that so many criminals trace 
back the beginnings of their evil course to Sabbath- 
breaking ? 

L I should think I was a candidate for ordina- 
tion, and you the Examining Council. 

H, Heaven forbid ! 

I, Why should Heaven forbid ? 

H. O, never mind ! Go on with your Sabbath- 
breaking. Don't get too many irons in the fire. 

L Don't you believe in Councils ? 

S. In their existence, yes. If there is no Sab- 
bath, why is its violation injurious, a la Milesian? 

L Don't you believe in their expediency ? 

H. Partially. Are the criminals then self-de- 
ceived ? 

/. Which part of them do you believe in ? 

S, Of the criminals ? In the whole man, mind, 
body, and estate. 

I, And which part of the Councils ? 

H. (With a groan.) I believe in the ministers 
coming together and interchanging friendly greet- 
ing, and eating a good dinner if it is offered them, 
and ordaining their man — ■ 

L Thou — 

a. Don't interrupt. If you will — 

/. If I cannot interrupt I will not listen at all. 

H, What were you about to remark ? 

L I was about to remark, and will now remark, 
that in thy injunction anent the good dinner thou 
savorest not the things that be of God, but those 



196 SUMMER REST. 

that be of men. We Congregationalists pride our- 
selves in following hard after the Apostles in our 
church organization and administration, but it 
seems to me the modern ordination dinner is any- 
thing but Apostolic. The ordinations of the New 
Testament were with fasting as well as praying 
and laying on of hands. 

S. I don't suppose they were all day about it ; 
but that is a point you must settle with the min- 
isters, while I get on to the negative side, and do 
not approve of their putting the candidate through 
a course of catechism preliminary to his ordina- 
tion. 

I, But they must find out what a man believes. 
They could not give him their sanction without 
knowing something about him. 

S. He can write on a sheet of paper a better ac- 
count of himself than three hours of clerical ques- 
tioning will elicit from him. Or a statement of 
belief might be prepared for such occasions, em- 
bracing those points whereon it is considered req- 
uisite that Orthodox clergymen should agree. If 
he can sign it, they will ordain him at once ; if he 
cannot, he will know it beforehand, and not apply 
for ordination. Or his Seminary diploma may be 
taken as evidence. A vast amount of time would 
be saved, and not a little rambling talk that 
amounts to nothing, and does not tend to increase 
respect for council or candidate in the minds of in- 
telligent persons. At the councils which I have at- 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 107 

tended both questions and answers have been often 
unsatisfactory. The members of the council walk 
in a vain show. There is little real examination. 
Objections are put and answered, investigations 
supposed to be made into creeds ; if the candidate 
loses himself in the maze now and then, the good-» 
natured questioner gives him a leading question 
and brings him out tenderly. But if you are going 
to lead him out, why put him in ? The trial is 
supposed to be in seeing whether he can get out of 
himself. Not unfrequently questions are of such 
a nature that they might puzzle a wiser and older 
brain than any divinity student can be expected to 
have. As to the objections, there is little learned 
by the answering of infidel objections put by be- 
lievers, or Universalist objections put by Ortho- 
dox. They are not the things he will be likely to 
meet in the world, nor will any such contests 
strengthen him for real encounters. As a general 
thing, there is no faith to be put in one man's rep- 
resentation of another man's belief. It is the 
easiest thing in the world to overthrow the argu- 
ment of your foe when it is presented by your 
friend, to win battles in your chimney-corner. If 
you really wush to see what a man can do in the 
way of polemics, bring up your Universalists and 
your Unitarians and your Roman Catholics in the 
flesh and set them on him. 

/. Of course a young man fresh from school 
could not stand such an onslaught as that, however 



198 SUMMER REST, 

able he is or may become. Besides, it is not prac- 
ticable. It would be just an interminable wrangle. 

jET. I do not suppose the young man could stand 
the onslaught. But if he cannot do it, it is mis- 
chievous to make him believe that he has done 
it. Let us have a fair fight or peace, but no sham 
fight. The times are too warlike for such fium- 
mery. If there is to be a public examination of 
the candidate, it should be such as we would not 
be ashamed of before the most bitter opponent of 
revealed religion or of our denomination. If ex- 
aminations must continue as they are, they should 
be held with closed doors. Every person who is 
accustomed to use his own mind or his eyes and 
ears, instead of other people's, should be rigor- 
ously excluded. If the powers that be ordained 
of councils are to hold sway over us, they must 
not admit us behind the curtain too freely. What 
is that sticking out from under your hat ? 

I. Nothing. (Moving the hat a little farther 
along on the grass.) 

IT. I am glad to hear it. I thought it looked 
like a manuscript. 

I, O no. It is only an ox-eye daisy. 

S. I could swear it had black stamens. 

L Not at all. It was the reflection of your 
eyes. 

JE[, That is a comforting assurance. I only hope 
you will stand by it. Am I told that mine are 
ox-eyes ? 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 199 

I. If they were they would be a thing of beauty 
as well as what they already are to me, a joy for- 
ever. You know the venerable ox-eyed Juno. 
By the way, Derby's Homer puts it " stag-eyed," 
which is not half so nice, somehow. 

H. Derby's Homer is Homer with the poetry 
left out. Is there anything else before this coun- 
cil? If not, we had better adjourn before you bring 
out your axe. 

L What axe? 

H. The axe you have to grind to pay for all 
your blandishments. 

L Why yes, don't think of breaking up yet ! 
It is my turn now. I have not answered your 
question about the Sabbath-breakers. 

H. Fire away then. 

I, The gentleman wishes to know why, if there 
be no such thing as Sabbath-breaking, so many 
criminals consider Sabbath-breaking their first step 
towards ruin. Permit me to say, with all respect 
to the honorable gentleman, that any one, who 
had as much knowledge of the laws of the human 
mind as might be looked for in the brains of a 
mouse which had nibbled three nights at a diction- 
ary, would not need to ask such a question. If 
you train a child to believe that the Divine word 
commands him to wear black shoe-strings, and 
that the Divine displeasure, and all sorts of moral 
and worldly evil, will follow the adoption of red ; 
if you drill it into him, from his childhood to his 



200 SUMMER REST. 

youth, support your doctrine by conclusive proof- 
texts, such as '' Look not upon the wine when it 
is red," " I am black but comely," " Wherefore 
art thou red in thine apparel ? " you may expect 
to hear him, as he is about to expire on the gal- 
lows, trace back his career of crime, step by step, 
to the fatal day when, allured by fashion and evil 
companions, he cast aside the moral shoe-strings 
in which he had been reared, and indulged first 
for an hour secretly, then for a day, and then 
openly and unblushingly, month after month, in 
the abomination of red cord and tassels. And 
the one case will be just as conclusive as the other. 
Shame and blame on you who have hedged him 
around with barriers which God never set. 

M. I trust that is a rhetorical, not a logical 
''you." 

I. It is a sort of general apostrophe to the 
enemy. But look at the Quakers. 

S. Friends you mean. " Quakers " is a nick- 
name, and uncourteous. 

Z The King of the Quakers told me, he would 
just as soon be called a Quaker as a Friend. 
Puritan is a nickname, and we glory in it. Meth- 
odist is a nickname. Christian is most likely a 
nickname. Quaker I like best, therefore, as I 
was saying, look at the Quakers. They hold all 
days in equal honor. Is it a cause of immorality? 
Do they fill the jails and build the gallows ? Look 
at the Germans. 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH, 201 

H, Most people would advise you to look the 
other way. 

L There is no need. Germany is not indeed 
an example of a warm-hearted Christian nation. 
But not only is there an adequate cause for her 
scepticism and indifference, entirely apart from her 
opinions concerning Sunday, but her most active 
and spiritual Christians share these opinions, show- 
ing that it is not her Sunday views which pro- 
duce the deadening effects. I have never heard, 
that those who are must desirous of a reformation 
wish to introduce the English Sabbath into the 
Fatherland. 

H. I was talking with Agincourt the other day. 
He was somewhat stirred by the Sunday habits 
of the Germans whom he saw in California. 
But he was compelled to admit that they were 
honest, sober, and as I inferred generally well- 
behaved. 

L Yes, and do you not remember Charles 
Loring Brace, in '' Home-Life in Germany," says 
the appearance of Hamburg at night is a wonder- 
ful contrast to the hideous rioting and drunken- 
ness of Glasgow and Edinburgh. And how 
beautiful is the family life that he saw, — the 
mutual forbearance of all, — the simple, cordial 
ways, the free respect for the old father, the care 
for the amusements and plays, the sunny, confid- 
ing life through the w^hole family. And how polite 
are all classes, and how capable of enjoyment. O, 
9* 



202 SUMMER REST, 

we Pharisees plume ourselves on our righteousness, 
but in some of the best lessons of life we might 
go to school to these Germans. 

H. About the best thing which I remember in 
that book was what one of their clergymen, I 
think it was, told Mr. Brace ; that, as one good 
result of German indifference, there was no rest- 
ing in forms as in England. There were plenty 
of Sadducees iii Protestant Grermany^ hut very 
few Pharisees. Mr. Brace himself could see that 
Rationalism had done away to a great extent with 
intellectual narrowness in theology. No one dared 
to come out with a crude opinion. He knew if it 
could not stand the boldest attacks, it must go 
down, whatever of authority was behind it. The 
consequence was, real liberality combined with 
real piety, breadth of view as well as depth of 
feeling. 

L You see, one of our Pharisaisms is to call 
every way of celebrating Sunday except our own 
immoral. Then of course, it is easy enough to 
convict a whole nation of immorality or even a 
whole continent. But there are plenty of sins 
to ravage on the soul, without setting up some of 
our own invention. When I see and hear of the 
boating and driving, and what is called the Sab- 
bath-breaking, it gives me pain, for I feel sure 
that it is done against conscience, and will inflict 
harm upon the persons who indulge in it. But 
if I could know that a young man was a Chris- 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH, 203 

tian, a lover and follower of Christ, I should 
not feel any more disturbed to know that he 
was taking a drive on a Sunday evening, than 
that he was eating his breakfast Sunday morn- 
ing. Only give Christ the first place in the 
heart, not by word or profession, but in fact, and 
then let every man do what he is fully persuaded 
in his own mind will most conduce to the well- 
being of himself and of society. The true social 
rule is, to do nothing which will tend to de- 
prive other people of their rest-day, by making 
them work, or deprive them of their worship-day, 
by disturbing them with noise. On this ground 
I should object to all public concerts, to the 
opening of reading-rooms and museums, to elabo- 
rate Sunday dinners, and especially dinner-parties, 
to Sunday newspapers, and horse-cars or steam- 
cars — 

H. To churches and Sunday schools. 

L What? 

H, You cannot have church-services and Sun- 
day schools without a good deal of work from 
minister, choir, sexton, teachers. 

L There does seem to be a little hitch here ; 
but the churches must be open, logic or no logic. 
If I had thought of it myself, I could have man- 
aged it, I dare say, but I never can think when 
anything is sprung upon me. Come now, help 
me out of this, you ordaining Council, you. 

H. You have only to bring in another principle, 



204 SUMMER REST, 

which is constantly at work, that of making a small 
outlay for a large income ; of using the inconven- 
ience of the few for the convenience of the many. 
The closest adherent of the Jewish Sabbath admits 
this. He finds no fault with his minister for work- 
ing harder on that day than on any other of the 
seven. He considers that the good accruing to 
the congregation balances the evil accruing to the 
minister. 

I. But the minister ought to take another day 
for his rest-day. 

H. Certainly. Many of them do. So it should 
be with all. If the opening of a reading-room is 
discovered to be serviceable to the morality, and 
for general benefit of a community, some arrange- 
ment should be made to give the person who is 
employed in it on that day opportunity to take 
another day for rest. If the running of the horse- 
cars on Sunday is decided to be of more good 
to the community than of harm to the company, 
the harm can be reduced to its minimum by em- 
ploying extra hands for the extra day, or by 
having the different drivers take turns in Sunday 
labor. 

L Have you seen that there is a good deal of 
excitement in Philadelphia about running the 
horse-cars on Sunday? 

H. I have seen that some of the clerg}Tnen and 
other citizens have taken very active measures 
against it, in the way I beheve of petition and 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 205 

public meetings for protest. I have also seen 
something else going on in Philadelphia. There 
were statements in the Atlantic Monthly months 
ago, some of which were afterwards copied into 
the Boston Congregationalist. I believe I have 
the slip in my pocket now if I have not lost it. 
Yes, here it is. Now listen to this : '' One widow 
taking out shirts at the arsenal, earned two dollars 
and forty cents in two weeks, but was denied per- 
mission to take them in when done, though ur- 
gently needing her pay, being told that she would 

be making too much money A third, whose 

husband was then in the army, found the price 
of infantry pantaloons reduced from forty-two to 
twenty-seven cents, — reduced by the government 
itself, — but she made eight pair a week, took care 
of five children, and was always on the verge of 
starvation. She declared that, if it were not for 
her children, she would gladly lie down and die. 
A fourth worked for contractors on overalls, at five 
cents a pair! Having the aid of a sewing-machine, 
she made six pair daily, but was the object of in- 
sult and abuse from her employer An aged 

woman worked on tents, making in each tent forty- 
six button-holes, sewing on forty -six buttons, then 
buttoning them together, then making twenty eye- 
let holes, — all for sixteen cents. After working 
the whole day without tasting food, she took in her 
work just five minutes after the hour for receiving 
and paying for the week's labor She asked 



206 SUMMER REST, 

them to pay her for what she had just delivered, 
but was refused. She told them she was without 
a cent, and that if forced to wait till another pay- 
day, she must starve. The reply was, ' Starve and 
be d — d ! That is none of my business. We have 
our rules, and shall not break them for any — .' A 
tailor gave to another sewing-woman a lot of pan- 
taloons to make up. The cloth being rotten, the 
stitches of one pair tore out, but by exercising 
great care she succeeded in getting the others 
made up. When she took them in, he accused 
her of having ruined them, and refused to pay 
her anything. She threatened suit, w^hereupon 
he told her to ' sue and be d — d,' and finally of- 
fered a shilling a pair, which her necessities forced 
her to accept." 

''One public praying man paid less than any 
other contractor, and frequently allowed his hands 
to go unpaid for two or three weeks together. An- 
other would give only a dollar for making thirteen 
shirts and drawers, of which a woman could finish 

but three in a day What but fallen women 

must some of the subjects of such atrocious treat- 
ment become ! It was ascertained from a letter 
sent by one of this class, that she had given way 
under the pressure of starvation. She said : ' I 
was once an innocent girl, the daughter of a cler- 
gyman. Left an orphan at an early age, I tried 
hard to make a living, but unable to endure the 
hard labor, and live upon the poor pay I received. 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 207 

I fell into sin. Tell your public that thousands 
like me have been driven by want to crime.' Yet 
the men who thus drove virtuous women to de- 
spair were amassing large fortunes. Their names 
appeared in the newspapers as liberal contribu- 
tors to every public charity that was started, — 
to sanitary fairs, to women's-aid societies, to the 
sick and wounded soldiers, to everything that 
would be likely to bring their names into print. 
They figured as respectable and spirited citizens. 

Of all men they were supremely loyal Some 

of them were church-members, famous as class- 
leaders and exhorters, powerful in prayer, espe- 
cially when made in public." 

These things have been published for months ; 
but if there has been any denial of their truth or 
any attempt on the part of the Church to clear it- 
self of this scandal before the world, I have not 
seen it. But if I were an unbeliever in Christian- 
ity, I think I should be much more likely to be 
won over to it by seeing the clergymen and church- 
men of Philadelphia ejecting from their commun- 
ion the men who grind the faces of the poor and 
disclaiming all complicity with the devils of extor- 
tion and greed, than I should by seeing them run 
a muck against the horse-cars. Monday is far 
more wickedly profaned by oppression than Sun- 
day by a six-penny ride. One is moved also to 
inquire whether the Christian population of Phila- 
delphia has ever taken any steps towards putting 



208 SUMMER REST. 

a stop to the running of private carriages on Sun- 
day. Or is there to be class legislation in the city 
of Brotherly Love ? Are rich people to be allowed 
to drive in their own coaches while poor people 
are not to be allowed the use of hired cars ? 

I. Take care ! The papers say a man w^as ex- 
pelled from one of these Philadelphia meetings for 
charging some of the clergy with the inconsistency 
of riding to and from church in their private car- 
riages, the driver being left out doors through 
service. 

S. Served him right. It was all the answer 
they could make. When you know a man is more 
than your match, the demands of our enlightened 
and Christian civilization require that you say your 
own say and then turn your opponent out doors. 
We have not only high clerical but political pre- 
cedent for such a procedure. 

L But you would not have transportation going 
on through Sunday as on other days ? 

JjT. No. I would have the business of the 
world come to a stop as far as possible, and the 
more perfect the pause the better; but an ab- 
solute stop is not possible. The businiess relations 
of life cannot safely or wisely be meddled with by 
those who know nothing about them. 

L But do not let people be eaten up alive by 
their business relations. " The world is too much 
with us." I am rather suspicious of " business re- 
lations." They cover a multitude of sins. 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH, 209 

H, You would fare ill without them. Let 
Sunday work be spun down to the very finest 
thread that will keep Saturday and Monday to- 
gether, but let no one insist on a rupture that shall 
make more work on Monday in uniting the broken 
ends than would have been caused by no change 
at all. I would have the current of hfe sweep into 
another channel as far as may be. The lav/yer 
should not look at his briefs, nor the merchant at 
his accounts, nor the scientific man at his science, 
nor the waiter at his book. The school-teacher 
and pupil should not go into Sunday school, and 
the cook should have no dinner to get. I would 
send the student into the field, and the farmer to 
his books, not, however, forsaking the assembling 
of themselves together. So business should loose 
its grasp of a man's soul, and give him a chance to 
look up and see God. Anything like fastening 
upon Sunday the ordinary routine of week-day 
toil I should consider with the utmost grief as an 
irreparable calamity. I do not think it can ever 
be done, but even the attempt would be disas- 
trous. 

/. Now I have something to say on that point 
very appropriate, if you would but listen to me. 
Here is a little paper — 

H. O, the axe-head is peeping out, is it? 

L Well, you can see for yourself that we are 
led directly up to it by our subject. I am not 
wantonly trifling with your domestic happiness. 

N 



210 SUMMER REST, 

H. Is it something funny ? 

L Not exactly funny, — why of course not ! but 
of the first importance. 

jff. Then I won't Hsten to it. (Swinging off 
up the orchard.) 

L Why! Hah (gathering up my rejected 

addresses and following him). 

H. First, because it is not funny, and second, 
because it is important. I will none of it. 

L Perhaps to-morrow then. 

S, Or week after next. 

L Week after next never comes. 

S. It might do a worse thing. 

I. If you would only be reasonable and promise 
to read it to-morrow, I would let you off to-day. 

H. To-morrow is quite out of the question. I 
have pressing engagements for to-morrow. Notice 
has been served on me, that the meal-chest is 
empty, and to-morrow I go to mill. 

L It will not take you all day just to go to mill. 
Four hours at furthest. 

S. And four more very likely to w^ait for the 
grist. I go in for the eight hour movement, and 
will not work over time. 

L So do I go in for it, as you wiU see ; and I 
hereby invite myself to go to mill with you, — 
" Thank you, I shall be very happy to accept the 
invitation," — and while we are waiting, you can 
improve the shining hours by reading this pro- 
found and truly admirably essay. 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH, 211 

So the next day the wagon was brought out, — 
none of your airy, fairy hints of wagons, with noth- 
ing really certain about them except the wheels ; 
but a good soHd wagon with a palpable body, sides a 
foot and a half high, made in panels, painted green 
outside and drab within, wheels with spokes in 
them and not spindles, a back seat and a front seat, 
movable and removable at pleasure, a buffalo-robe 
to sit on, and an honest, unambitious nag to draw 
you, — that is what I call a wagon. On the present 
occasion the front seat was taken out, and the back- 
seat pushed forward for the better bestowing of the 
freight. With a lively consciousness that possession 
is nine points of the law, I pre-empted this seat 
as soon as the horse was harnessed, and so antici- 
pated any objections that might be raised to my 
part of the journey grounded on the character or 
bulk of the load. The wagon is backed up to the 
gate, and the tail-board let down. The load is 
brought out on the shoulders of a stalwart Atlas, — 
bushel-bags of tow^ cloth, puffed out with shelled 
corn on its winding w^ay to become Johnny-cakes, 
brown-bread cakes, and Indian puddings, or, with 
rye, which is equally sure to suffer a fire-change 
into drop-cakes, muffins, and other things rich 
and strange, — gathered up at one end and bound 
with a strong cord, — just such sacks, for aught 
I know, as Joseph's brethren carried down into 
Egypt, and with plenty of room in every sack's 
mouth for a silver cup and corn-money ; — but 



212 SUMMER REST. 

never in my experience was cup or corn-money 
found there. These bags Atlas dumps down on 
the wagon-floor, causing the ancient vehicle to 
groan and tremble through all its frame, and rais- 
ing little puffs of flour-dust in the air, remnants of 
many a vanished grist. Then come baskets of 
corn on the cob, to which I oflfer constitutional 
objections ; but Halicarnassus maintains that it is 
the cream of classic elegance, — the very style 
of Oriental splendor in which Dido entertained 
^neas, — 

" Cereremque canistris 
Expediunt," — 

a theory which I vehemently demolish, having no 
manner of doubt that her " Cereremque canis- 
tris " was frosted fruit-cake in silver baskets, as 
becomes a queen ; and while the dispute is yet 
hot between us the final touches are given, the 
tail-board is screwed up, Rosinante stretches her 
old bones, the harness rattles, the wheels revolve, 
and we lumber down the lane dew-besprent in the 
early morning. How bright the sky, how cool the 
air, how fresh the smells ! The rough gates sag- 
ging slowly back, grating harsh thunder, seem to 
be the ever-during gates on golden hinges turning. 
Sedately we wind through the open pasture, linger- 
ing long among the broad tracts of sweet fern, past 
the black, sullen pool in the hollow, — sullen 
to me, but most winsome to the panting cows, 
when the sun waxes hot and they saunter down 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH, 213 

to stand knee-deep in the muddy coolness and 
while away the noontide with lashing their tails. 
And the stagnant pond will by and by bloom 
out with a brilliant beauty which no garden of 
Istamboul can surpass. Up from its black bed 
will leap an army of lilies, fair as the sun, clear 
as the moon, all spotless of the slime from which 
they sprung, and breathing only sweetest odors. 
And on past the berberry hedge, with its sharp- 
set acid leaves dear to child-tongues, and beautiful 
now with clusters of graceful, drooping yellow 
flowers, to be still more beautiful when the deep- 
ening summer and the glowing autumn shall fes- 
toon them with crimson fruit. Berberry, — the 
children will look askance at the word, — but a 
5arberry-bush they know full well ; and joining 
hands in a circle they dance wildly around, sing- 
ing at the top of their voices, — - 

" As we go round the barberry-bush, 
The barberry, barberry, barberry-bush, 
As we go round the barberry-bush 

So early every morning. 
This is the way we wash our clothes, 
We wash, we wash, we wash our clothes, 
This is the way we wash our clothes 
So early every morning." 

And all the time you are dancing around in the 
circle you must imitate the motion of washing, 
washing, washing clothes, or ironing, ironing, iron- 
ing clothes, or combing, combing, combing hair, 
or whatever else you take it into your head to 



214 SUMMER REST, 

do so early every morning, and woe to him who 
first loses breath. What fun it was ! And now 
we turn an acute angle, and passing through 
another gate are in the swamp, the sunniest, 
most un-dismal swamp that ever settled on its 
lees. The sweet, dry, aromatic pasture smells 
have given place to the sweet, damp, thick odors 
of the spongy bog. The roadside at first is pink- 
studded with the regular, ornate sheep-laurel. 
The low blueberry and huckleberry bushes give 
promise of fiiture feasts ; and now the road nar- 
rows, and is shut in between two walls, which, 
indeed, are quite covered up and lost in the clasp 
of wild grape-vines, and clematis, and roses just 
opening to the sun. A narrow road, but the 
swamp begrudges us even that, and presses up 
closer and closer, and the trees reach out and join 
hands over our heads, and we ride through a green 
tunnel, rose-bedecked, — a green bough bolder 
than the rest, now and then dashing the dew 
slap ! in our faces, and splendid rhodoras swing- 
ing their censers afar, unseen. Long delaying, 
we come at last upon the high road, and '' vage " 
through the village, — not swiftly, I know, but 
that is no excuse for the saucy urchin, lounging 
with his mates under the churchyard fence, call- 
ing and drawling, '' Mister ! your wheels turn 
round!" — the rambling, straggling village over 
which broods the quiet of a perpetual Sabbath. 
On under the shadows of the great elms and out 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 215 

of the village again upon the broad causeway built 
across the meadows, and fringed with willows, 
winding around the vine-clad rocks and into the 
woods again, — a charming road to walk in alone, 
till Satan was unloosed in these later days, and 
peopled its dear solitude with dread phantonis. 
I remember the last time I ventured there, I had 
just left the village out of sight, and passing round 
a bend came upon some cows grazing among the 
bushes, and a man, half hidden, leaning against 
a pair of bars. I was a good deal afraid of the 
man and not at all afraid of the cows, so I pre- 
tended to be very much afraid of the cows and 
utterly trustful towards the man. '' These cows 
won't hurt me, will they ? " I called out, with 
what was designed to be a most winning confi- 
dence, to my bandit, shying around the leader of 
the drove, a soft-eyed creature that would not 
have harmed a fly. I think the wretch saw 
through the flimsy subterfuge, for surely the Evil 
One sparkled in his wicked eyes as he called back 
sonorously, '^ No, I guess not ; that one next you 
is apt to hook, but I guess she won't as long 's I 'm 
round." A little farther on a cavalcade of team- 
sters came up with their great square loads of 
English hay, and I felt safe. There is something 
intrinsically honest about teamsters. They seem 
to be a sort of country police. Whenever they 
rumble by in the night they give a sense of se- 
curity. You know there are honest men stirring. 



216 SUMMER REST. 

Is your barn catching fire ? Is a burglar tam- 
pering with your locks ? A teamster comes up 
and gives the alarm, and the fire is put out and 
the burglar cuts across lots. For v^^e get but a 
second-rate order of burglar in the country. There 
is nothing to attract a connoisseur. He must be 
but a bungler in his business who will prowl 
around o' nights for the mere chance of steaUng 
a little dirty paper currency, mostly counterfeit. 
I remonstrated once with a woman for sleeping 
with her doors unfastened. " If any burglar has 
any thought of making us a visit," she cried, em- 
phatically, with uplifted hands, " all I ask is that 
he will come and take one look at the silver, just 
one. He will never come again, for it is all sham." 
I was counting up once, with another friend, the 
number of outside doors in his rambling old house. 
To the best of my knowledge and belief we made 
out fourteen. ''I hope you fasten them all at 
night," said one. '' O, we generally fasten some 
of them," was the careless reply, — "three or four, 
and by that time we get tired of it and let the 
rest go." Which is very bad for the burglar. Of 
course no respectable member of the profession 
would care to open a front door and walk in like 
a Christian. 

After the teamsters had gone by, and before I 
was well out of the wilderness, two men appeared 
in sight, real Italian brigands, with stilettos dancing 
in their eyes. Up they came to me as soon as 



GILFILLAN'S SABBATH. 217 

they saw me, and one of tliem held out his hand. 
'' Would you be pleased to accept the gift of a 
young robin that I found on the ground out here," 
and indeed he had a pitiful little bird well feathered, 
but half educated. I took it from his brown Flor- 
entine hand, thanked him with voluble, and I 
trusted disarming gratitude, and walked on as fast 
as possible till I had reached a settled country 
again, when I placed my little foundling tenderly 
on the grass, believing that Nature could take care 
of her minors better than I. I am convinced he 
was no robin at all, but a partridge or a quail, for 
he hopped off directly in the best of spirits, and so 
did I, and that was his end and the end of that 
walking. 

And now with many a crook and turn the mill 
is gained, the bags and baskets are hauled out and 
deposited in the mill ; we watch the process of 
grinding so long as it amuses us, see the slow 
whirlpool of corn slowly sinking, and the little riv- 
ulet of meal trickling into the waiting trough, and 
learn that it is not only the mills of the gods, but 
the mills of men also, that 

" grind slowly, 
But they grind exceeding small " ; 

and then we stroll out and down the mill-stream, 
and where an overhanging tree gives pleasant 
shade, and green turf a pleasant seat, and tumbling 
rocks in the mill brook a pleasant sound of gur- 
gling waters, and all the place is full of peace, 

10 



218 SUMMER REST, 

we dispose our luncheon on the grass^ and the 
huge black ants gallop in and get their share of 
the gingerbread ; but there is no harm done, and 
we eat our meat with gladness and singleness of 
heart, and scatter the fragments to the fishes, and 
then out comes the inevitable manuscript, to which 
my friend meekly betakes himself; and as for me, 
I climb upon a mossy rock jutting out over the 
water, and go sailing round the world. 

This is the manuscript. You can call it a new 
chapter if you like, or you can call this interlude 
a chapter. Strictly speaking, I suppose there 
ought to be a break-off where we go to mill. But 
arrange it any way you choose ; and if you think 
it is an easy matter to make a book, and have all 
the machinery running smoothly, I should like to 
have you try it. The main body of it is manage- 
able enough : it is the joints and hinges that cost. 




THE KINGDOM COMING. 




F one looks to the individual for proof 
of the power of Christianity, he will 
generally look in vain. Creeds differ ; 
but of persons from the same rank in 
life, one is, on the whole, apparently about* as 
good as ianother. If we are virtuous where we 
are not tempted, liberal in matters concerning 
which we are indifferent, reticent when we have 
nothing to say, — in one word, pleasant when we 
are pleased, — it is all that our best friends have 
any reason to expect of us. What religion does 
for a man may be great, and even radical, from his 
near point of view ; but from the world's position 
it is scarcely visible, and is often wholly lost in 
the more palpable influences of temperament and 
circumstance. But when we look at society, we 
can see that some silent agency is at work, slowly, 
but surely, attuning our life to finer issues than 
the Golden Ages knew. The hidden leaven of 
Christianity is working its noiseless way through 
the whole lump. Christendom is on a higher 



220 SUMMER REST. 

plane than Pagandom, and is still ascending. In 
the stress of daily life, we are sometimes tempted 
to lose heart, and cry, " Who shall show ns any- 
good for all this toil and watch and struggle?" 
but in calmer moments, looking back over the 
Difficult Hills, we cannot fail to see that we have 
gained ground. The sacredness of humanity is 
gradually overtopping the prerogatives of class. 
More and more clearly man asserts himself, the 
end of every good, the standard by which every 
change is to be judged. With many an ebb, the 
tide of all healthful and helpful force is flooding 
our associated life ; and the brotherhood of the 
race attests itself by many infallible signs. 

But they are not always nor only found where 
they are sought. Workmanship does not show 
to the best advantage in workshops. The din 
and whirl of machinery confuse us. We need 
to see the wonderful engine in actual operation, 
the beautiful ornament fitly placed, before we can 
decide finally upon its character. The churches 
have been the workshops of Christianity. There 
it has been received, fused, hammered, polished, 
fashioned for all human needs ; but nothing less 
than the w^hole world is the true theatre of its 
activity. Not what it has done for the Church, 
but what it has done, is doing, and purposes to 
do for humanity, is the measure of its merit. 
Not upon the mitre of the priest, but upon the 
bells of the horses, is the millennial day to see 
inscribed " Holiness unto the Lord ! " 



THE KINGDOM COMING, 221 

Since, then, the kingdom of God cometh not 
with observation, we need not look for fearful 
sights and great signs in the heavens. They are 
but false prophets who cry, " Lo, here ! " or '' Lo, 
there ! " when the still, small voice is whispering 
all the while, '' The kingdom of God is within 
you." Yes, within this framework of society, 
in the midst of this busy, trivial daily life, which 
seems so full of small cares and selfish seeking, 
the Divine Spirit lives and works, and will yet 
raise it to the heights of heavenly fellowship. 
It breathes in the thousand methods devised by 
ingenuity to lighten the burdens of labor, by 
benevolence to soothe away the bitterness of sor- 
row, by taste to beautify the homes of poverty. 
The little photograph leaves that flutter down 
into every household in the land are a great cloud 
of witnesses showing us that science is but the 
handmaid of God, whose service is to bear to all 
the blessings once reserved for a class. In the 
old time it was only the few who could fix for 
future years the beloved features of a friend. 
Now every fond mother may transcribe from 
birthday to birthday the face of her darling, to 
note its beautiful changes, and every lowliest bride 
preserve for her children's children the bloom of 
her budding youth. 

The religious world has hardly learned to look 
for its millennium in the horse-cars. Neverthe- 
less, its signs are there, not to be mistaken. The 



222 SUMMER REST. 

poor sewing- woman feels their presence, if she 
does not trace them to their source. The humble 
invahd knows them, the domestic drudge, the 
aihng, puny child, the swart and stalwart work- 
man, who ride their one or ten miles as swiftly 
and smoothly as a millionnaire, and are set down 
at shop or home, or among the freshness and 
fragrance and song of the beautiful country. The 
horse-car is the poor man's private carriage, as 
carefully fashioned for his convenience, as tidy 
and comfortable and comely, as if it cost him 
hundreds of dollars, instead of the daily sixpence. 
With a lifted finger he commands his coachman, 
who waits promptly on his wish. Without care, 
he is cared for. Without capital, he controls 
capital. Free society does more for him than the 
richest despot does for the enslaved people whom 
the instinct of self-preservation forces him to ca- 
jole, and does it, too, without any infringement 
upon his manhood. We call it energy, enterprise, 
modern conveniences. It is the millennium. 

But these matters are under full headway. Sci- 
ence and self-interest have taken them in hand, 
and there is no danger that they will not be car- 
ried out to their farthest beneficial limits. There 
is another measure just struggling into uncertain 
life, — a measure that appeals less directly to self- 
advantage, but which is yet so fraught with good 
or evil, according as it is carefully studied, clearly 
understood, and wisely managed, or suffered to fail 



THE KINGDOM COMING. 223 

through inattention, or to lead an irregular, riotous 
life for a few years and then to be abated as a nui- 
sance, that we cannot safely pass it by. I refer to 
the movement making itself felt in various ways, 
but aiming always to give more leisure to the work- 
ing classes. In one phase, it is seeking to reduce 
the hours of daily labor ; in another, it is trying to 
close the shops on Saturday afternoons. In both, 
it is a step so radically in the right direction, that 
we can but give thanks for the opportunity, while 
we tremble lest it may not be firmly and wisely 
laid hold of. In planning for human weal, one 
is met on every side by the want of leisure. 
Every day and every hour comes so burdened 
with its material necessities, that the wants of 
heart and mind and spirit can find no adequate 
gratification. The work goes on satisfactorily ; 
wealth accumulates ; farms are well tilled ; mech- 
anism becomes more and more exquisite ; but 
drunkenness, profligacy, stupidity, insanity, and 
crime undermine the man, for whom all these 
things are and were created, and to whom they 
ought to bring wisdom and power and peace. 
Thus our boasted improvements become our fol- 
ly. All labor-saving machinery that does not save 
labor in the sense of giving leisure, that merely 
increases the quantity or improves the quality of 
that which is produced, but does not redound to 
the improvement of the producer, rather con- 
tributes to his degradation, has somewhere a fatal 



224 SUMMER REST. 

flaw. Mind may legitimately fashion matter into 
a machine ; but when it would reduce mind also 
to the same level, it steps beyond its province. 
When it fails to continue through the sphere of 
mind the impulse it communicates to matter, — - 
when its benefit stops with fabric, falling short 
of the man who stands over it, — it lags behind its 
duty, and is so far unsuccessful. 

The movement for diminishing the number of 
laboring hours has already been brought before 
the notice of the Massachusetts Legislature, and 
has been made the subject of careful and extensive 
inquiry. It is to be hoped that nothing will be 
left undone to secure a just and righteous decision. 
In the intelligence and virtue of its workingmen 
lies the hope of the Republic. If the proposed 
change shall tend to promote that intelligence and 
virtue, it will be the part of true patriotism to 
effect it. Whether this particular means be or be 
not the wisest for the end in view, the path of a 
higher life unquestionably lies in this direction. 
The accomplishment of the greatest results with 
the least outlay of time and toil is the problem in 
physical science. With the leisure and strength 
thus redeemed from lower needs, to build up 
manhood is the problem of moral science. 

The Saturday half-holiday is less an affair of 
law and legislature, depends more upon private 
men and women, but is of scarcely less importance. 
It is not to be disguised that there are difficulties 



THE KINGDOM COMING, 225 

and dangers attending the plan. It is as yet prob- 
ably regarded only as an experiment, though cer- 
tain classes of mercantile men have been trying it 
for years, with what satisfaction their persistence 
in it indicates. Undoubtedly there are many 
young men who misspend their holiday, and many 
more who do not know what to do with it, and 
who will finally fall into mischief through sheer 
idleness. The hours drag so heavily that they 
half conclude they would about as soon be at work 
as at liberty with nothing to do. Possibly there 
are more who abuse their holiday than use it ad- 
vantageously. But just as far as this evil ex- 
tends, so far it shows, not the harm of leisure, but 
the sore straits we have been brought to for lack 
of it. There is no sadder result of the disuse of a 
faculty than the decadence of that faculty. Time 
is the essential gift of God to man, — essential not 
merely to providing for his physical wants, but to 
forming his character, to developing his powers, 
to cultivating his taste, to elevating his life. Is it, 
then, that he has devoted so disproportionate a 
share of this time to one of its uses, and that not 
the noblest, that he has lost the desire and the 
ability to devote any of it to its higher uses? 
Have young men given themselves to buying and 
selhng till they have no interest in Nature, in 
books, in art, in manly sport and exercise ? Then 
surely it behooves us at once to change all this. 
No man can have a well-balanced mind, a good 
10* o 



226 SUMMER REST, 

judgment, who is interested in nothing but his 
business. If, when released from that for a half- 
day each week, he is listless, aimless, discontented, 
it is a sure' sign that undue devotion to it has in- 
jured his powers, and is making havoc of his finer 
organization. 

It is to be feared that many of our young men 
do not know what recreation means. They con- 
found it with riot. Fierce driving, hard drinking, 
violence, and vice they understand; but with quiet, 
refining, soothing, and strengthening diversions 
they have small acquaintance. This is very largely 
the fault of the community in which they live. Do 
Christian families in our large cities feel the obli- 
gations which they are under towards the young 
men who come among them? I believe that a 
very large part of the immorality, the irreligion, 
the scepticism and crime into which young men 
fall is due to their being so coldly and cruelly let 
alone by Christian families. A boy comes up 
from the country, where every one knows him and 
greets him, into the solitude of the great city. He 
has left home behind him, and finds no new home 
to receive him. When he is released from his 
work in shop or counting-room, nothing more in- 
viting awaits him than the silent room in the dreary 
boarding-house. He misses suddenly, and at a 
most sensitive age, the graces and spontaneous 
kindnesses of home, the thousand little teasings 
and pettings, the common interests and tender- 



THE KINGDOM COMING. 227 

nesses, that he never thought of till he lost them. 
He is surrounded by men and boys all bent on 
their several ways. He must have amusement. 
It is as necessary to him as daily food. What 
wonder, then, if he accepts the first that offers ? 
And if Satan, as usual, is beforehand with his in- 
vitations, what shall hinder him from foUowino- 
Satan ? The saloon, warmed and lighted, and 
enlivened with music or merry talk, is more at- 
tractive than the dingy, solitary room ; and if his 
feet do slip now and then, who is the worse for it? 
He will never write it home, and there is nobody 
in the city who will discover it ; provided he is 
prompt at his business, no one will meddle with 
his leisure hours. And if full-grown men are 
found to need the restraining influences of wife and 
child and neighbor, and to plunge into brutality 
whenever they form a community by themselves, 
what can prevent boys, when cast adrift, from 
drifting into sin ? Genius is supreme, but genius 
is the heritage of but few ; while passion and ap- 
petite, love of society and amusement, need of 
w^atchfulness, and susceptibility to temptation, be- 
long to all. "I don't like wine," said a young 
man, "I hate the taste of it; but what am I to 
do? A lot of fellows carousing is n't the best com- 
pany in the world ; but I can't stay moping in 
my room alone all the time. There 's my violin. 
Well, I took it out once or twice, but it was no go. 
When I could go into the parlor after supper, and 



228 SUMMER REST, 

mother sewing and Bess to sing, it was worth 
while ; but there is no fun in fiddhng to yourself 
by wholesale. Besides, I suppose it bores the 
rest to have a fellow sawing away." And this 
was a fine, healthy young man, all ready to be 
made a warm friend, a patriotic citizen, a pure 
and happy man, and just as ready to become a 
reckless, dissipated, sorrow-bringing failure. And 
alas ! where were the hands that should have 
helped him ? Alas ! alas ! what are the hands 
that will not be backward to lay hold on him? 

If any holiday is to be made useful, if young 
men are to be saved from ruin, saved to their 
mothers and sisters and wives, saved to themselves, 
to their country, and to God, Christian people 
must bestir themselves. Young Men's Christian 
Associations may be ever so efficient, but they 
cannot do everything. The work that is to be 
done cannot be wrought by associations alone, nor 
by young men, nor by any men. It needs fathers 
and mothers and sons and daughters and firesides. 
The only way to keep boys from the haunts of 
vice is to open to them the abodes of virtue. 
Give them access to loving families, to happy 
homes. Nothing can supply this want. No at- 
tendance at any church is to be for a moment 
compared to attendance at the sacred shrine of an 
affectionate family. But when, a little while ago, 
a young man who had been for years a clerk in 
a large city, was asked in how many families he 



THE KINGDOM COMING. 229 

was acquainted, he replied quickly, "Not one." 
Yet he was a member of an Orthodox Congrega- 
tional Church, which, I take it, is to be as good 
as anybody can be in this world, and a regular 
attendant upon religious services in one of the 
most influential Orthodox churches in the citv. 
Sunday after Sunday he was in his seat, yet 
neither pastor nor people — not one of all that 
great congregation — ever took him by the hand 
and constrained him to sit by their hearthstones, 
ever welcomed him to the warmth and gladness 
and gentle endearments of their homes. What 
is the communion of saints ? If that young man 
had brought a letter of introduction from some 
distinguished person, would they have thus let 
him go in and out among them unnoticed and 
uncared for ? But to church-members, surely, a 
certificate of church-membership ought to be as 
weighty as a letter of introduction. A Christian 
church should be so managed that it should be 
impossible for any attendant upon its services to 
escape observation ; and it should be so trained 
to its social duties that every person who takes 
shelter in its sanctuary should at least have the 
opportunity to find shelter in its homes. I think 
it would be well, even, that those who are present 
at a single church service should be courteously 
noticed and encouraged to repeat the visit. If 
the church is indeed God's house, let the servants 
of the Master dispense His hospitalities in such a 



230 SUMMER REST. 

manner as befits His divine character, remember- 
ing that the world judges of Him through them. 
Let fathers and mothers be on the watch to speak 
kindly words to such homeless wanderers as may- 
roam within the circle of their influence. If a 
stranger is introduced into the family pew, let him 
be no longer a stranger, but a guest. Let him 
not remain during the service and pass out at its 
close without some brotherly or fatherly recogni- 
tion, without some assurance by word or look or 
little attention that his presence there gave pleas- 
ure. This is a beginning of home feeling. 

It would be a fit thing, if every country pastor 
should give to every boy who leaves his parish a 
letter of introduction to some clergyman in the 
city whither he is going, so that there should be 
no interregnum, — no time when the boy should 
be utterly unfriended, loosed from restraint, and a 
prey to unclean and hateful things. But this is 
not done, and we should not wait for it. The 
Prince of Evil never stands upon etiquette. He 
is instant in season and out of season ; and those 
who would circumvent him must be equally prompt 
and vigilant. The Church should weave its meshes 
of watchful care and love and friendship so close 
that nobody can slip through unseen. 

A duty rests upon all merchants and tradesmen, 
upon all, indeed, who employ clerks or apprentices, 
which is not discharged when their quarterly pay- 
ments are made. A man is in some respects the 



THE KINGDOM COMING, 231 

father of the young men whom he employs, and 
he should do them fatherly service. It is not 
possible to enter into relations with any human 
being without at the same time incurring responsi- 
bility concerning him. How much might be done 
for young men, if merchants would feel a domestic 
as well as a mercantile interest in them ! It may 
not be advisable to renew the old custom of mak- 
ing clerks and apprentices members of the mas- 
ter's family ; but surely they can be made occa- 
sional guests without any sacrifice that shall seem 
too great to the followers of Him who laid down 
the glory which He had with the Father before the 
world was, only that He might save sinners. Is 
it a dangerous thing to introduce strangers into a 
young family? But is the character that is not 
good enough for the drawing-room quite harm- 
less in the counting-room ? If merchants, master 
mechanics, and employers generally would set a 
premium upon integrity and good manners, those 
qualities would not long be found wanting. In- 
calculable is the influence which these civilizing 
surroundings would have upon a susceptible boy. 
Only let them come in early. Do not wait till sin 
has thrown out its more showy lures, and then 
attempt to tear him away from them already half 
polluted; but while his soul is yet unstained, while, 
lonely, inexperienced, self-distrustful, he is ready 
to be moulded by the first skilful touch, let it come 
from the wise hands of honorable and responsible 



232 SUMMER REST, 

men whose position gives weight to their opinions 
and from the gentle hands of motherly women. 
Provide, — even if it be at the cost of a httle 
pains, a httle sacrifice of the quiet and seclusion 
of home, — provide for his youth its fitting and 
innocent delights, that sinful pleasures may have 
no charm for him. The good which the merchant 
does to his clerks will redound to the good of his 
own children. There is probably as much intelli- 
gence and virtue and youthful promise among his 
clerks as among his sons and daughters. The in- 
fluence of man upon woman, also, is just as health- 
ful as that of woman upon man ; for both are in 
the order of Nature. The brothers and sisters will 
dance to their mother's playing all the more glee- 
fully for a stranger or two in the set ; and Mary 
will enter with fresher zest into the game of cards, 
because courteous Mr. Gordon is her partner in- 
stead of her teasing brother. And it is not whist 
nor dancing that harms young people. It is out- 
lawry. Whist does not lead to gambling. Dan- 
cing does not lead to dissipation. It is playing 
cards " on the sly " that leads to gambling. It is 
having to get out of the way of ministers, and 
church-members, and all religious people, when 
there is to be dancing, that leads to dissipation. 
It is loneliness, want of interest and diversion, any 
unjust and unnatural restriction that leads to all 
manner of wild and boisterous and vicious amuse- 
ments, which prey upon the soul. If to a young 



THE KINGDOM COMING, 233 

man, on his first coming to the city, there open 
only two or three houses, where he can now and 
then find welcome, — where are two or three ex- 
cellent women who exercise a gentle jurisdiction 
over him, who will notice if his eye be heavy 
or his cheek pale, who will administer, upon occa- 
sion, a little sweet motherly chiding, mend a rent 
in his gloves, advise in the choice of a necktie, 
and call upon him occasionally for trifling ser- 
vice or attendance, — where he can find a few- 
hot-headed, perhaps, but well-fathered and well- 
mothered boys, who have the same headstrong 
will, the same fierce likes and dislikes, the same 
temptations and weaknesses as himself, but who 
are saved from disaster by gentle but firm au- 
thority, and constant yet scarcely perceptible in- 
fluence, — a few bright girls, who will sing and 
dance and talk with him, and probably pique and 
tantalize him, — how greatly are the chances mul- 
tiplied against his ever turning aside into the de- 
basing saloon ! He naturally likes purity better 
than impurity. The interests of a man at whose 
table he sits, whose children are his companions, 
whose wife is his friend and confidante, will be far 
nearer to him than those of one whom he rarely 
sees and little knows. Something of the home at- 
mosphere will cling to office-walls, and soften the 
sharp outlines and sweeten the unfragrant air of 
perpetual traffic and self-seeking. Pure society 
will be a constant inducement to keep himself 



234 SUMMER REST. 

pure. Reading, studying, riding, singing, driv- 
ing, boating, ball-playing with well-bred and high- 
hearted young friends will give plentiful outlet 
to his animal spirits, plentiful gratification to his 
social wants, plentiful food for his mental hunger ; 
and while he is thus enjoying the pleasures which 
are but the lawful dues of his spring-time, he 
will be all the while becoming more and more 
worthy of love and respect, more and more fitted 
to bear, in his turn, the burdens of Church and 
State. And if, in spite of it all, his feet are still 
swift to do evil, it will be a satisfaction to those 
w^ho thus have striven for his welfare to know 
that his blood is not on them nor on their chil- 
dren. 

There are other things to be taken into account. 
The leisure of Saturday afternoon must, it would 
seem, conduce greatly to quiet Sundays. When 
young men are confined six long days behind the 
counter, it is. but natural that on the seventh they 
should give themselves to merry-making. For, let 
it be remembered, sport is as natural, yes, and as 
necessary, to youth as worship ; and in the order 
of human development, it comes first. It is very 
hard to say to a boy : '' You have been writing, 
and weighing, and measuring all the week. Now 
the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers 
blooming, the river sparkling, and boat and horse 
await your hand, but you must turn away from 
them all and go to church. You have been boxed 



THE KINGDOM COMING. 235 

up for SIX days, and now you must be boxed up 
again. There is no fresh air, there are no summer 
sounds for you ; but only noise and dust and pave- 
ments all the days of your life." It happens, at 
any rate, that there is no use in saying this ; for 
young blood overleaps it all, and city suburbs re- 
sound on Sunday with the clatter of hoofs and 
the rattle of wheels ; and no one need be surprised, 
who has any acquaintance with human nature 
on the one side, or any conception of the irksome- 
ness of continued confinement on the other. It 
would, indeed, be a strange, and, I think, a sad 
thing, if young people were willing to let suns 
rise, and stars set, and all the beautiful changes 
of Nature go on, without an irresistible, instinc- 
tive prompting to fly from the grave monotony 
of the city, and live and breathe in her freshness 
and her loveliness. If a young man must choose 
between play of muscle, the free air of the hills, 
and sitting in an ill- ventilated church, he will often 
choose tlie former; and if he cannot enjoy these 
things without going in opposition to the best 
sense of the community, if they cannot be com- 
passed without a certain consciousness of wrong- 
doing, they will lead to recklessness and lawless- 
ness ; for compassed they will be. 

But let the young men have Saturday afternoon 
for their boating and bowling and various other 
pastimes, and they will be far more disposed to 
hear what the minister has to say on Sunday, — 



236 SUMMER REST. 

far more disposed, let us hope, to join in prayer 
and praise. One very obvious and practical con- 
sideration is, that many of them, probably the 
larger part, can spend on a single holiday all the 
holiday money they have to spend ; so there will 
be nothing for it but to stay at home on Sunday by 
force of the res angustce domi. And is it too much 
to believe, that, the half-day having given them 
that physical exercise, amusement, and change 
which they need, Sunday will find them the more 
ready to receive and appropriate spiritual nourish- 
ment ? I have said that sport is as natural and 
necessary as worship. But, on the other hand, 
worship is as natural as sport. Very few, I 
think, are the persons, young or old, in all of 
whose thoughts it may be said God is not. And 
if this natural, spontaneous turning to God were 
not interfered with by our pernicious modes of 
training and management, we should not be- 
come so fearfully alienated from Him. Play and 
work and worship would be animated by one 
spirit. Many surely there are who would be more 
likely to devote a part of their Sunday to the direct 
worship of God, and to a more intimate knowledge 
of His works and words, who would be more 
likely to come under the influence of the Bible 
and the pulpit, from having had opportunity first 
to free their lungs from the foul air, and their 
limbs from the lifelessness, which a long confine- 
ment to business had caused. At least let us not 



THE KINGDOM COMING. 237 

tempt any to make Sunday a day of fun and frolic, 
by giving them no other day for their fun and 
frohc. Provide things honest in the sight of all 
men. 

Women can do much towards bringing about 
this holiday, and towards keeping it intact when it 
is once secured. Let every woman make a point 
of doing no shopping on Saturday afternoons. A 
very little forethought will prevent any incon- 
venience from the deprivation. If a tradesman 
chooses to keep his shop open on Saturdays, when 
others of the same kind are shut, let every woman 
take care not only not to enter it on that day, but 
not to enter it on any day. And in order that 
the hoKday may begin as promptly as the working- 
day, women should not put off their purchases till 
the last minute before closing. If the shops are to 
be shut at two o'clock, let no one enter them after 
one o'clock, except in case of emergency. If the 
clerks have to take down goods from their shelves, 
overhaul box and drawer, and unroll and unfold 
and derange till the time for closing arrives, an 
hour or an hour and a half of their holiday must 
be consumed in the work of putting the store to 
rights. Let this last hour of the working- week be 
spent in arrangement, not in derangement. Be 
ashamed to ask a clerk to disturb a shelf which has 
just been set in Sunday order. Let the young 
men be ready, so that, when the clock strikes the 
hour, release may come. 



238 SUMMER REST. 

H. Did I ever tell you about my talk awhile 
ago with Mr. Ambrose? 

L No. What Mr. Ambrose ? 

H. O yes I did, and you got the idea of this 
essay from it. 

L What assurance ! I never heard a word 
about it. I did not know you had seen him. 

H. Well, I have, and he gave me a chapter of 
his experience and experiments on this very point. 
He employs six or eight men on his farm. When 
his head man went there last spring, Mr. Ambrose 
told him that he wanted the Sabbath respected, 
and only such w^ork done on that day as could 
not be done on Saturday or Monday. Afterwards, 
reflecting on this matter of observing the Sabbath, 
he became convinced that, as an employer, requir- 
ing six working-days in the week of his men and 
boys, he was to a great degree responsible for 
whatever wrong was done in the way of spending 
the Sabbath in recreation. The first thing he did 
was to write an article for some country paper, 
arguing that the fractions of a day now at the la- 
borer's command were wholly insufficient. After 
taking time to mature the plan in his own mind 
and give it a practical shape, he told his boys 
that for the future, such weeks as contain national 
holidays excepted, he should give them each Sat- 
urday afternoon, on condition that they would 
attend meeting on the Sabbath, They agreed to 
this gladly enough. Benny, the oldest, spoke up 



THE KINGDOM COMING. 239 

and said, "I go to meeting now all day and the 
evening too." He omitted to mention that as sure 
as he did go he slept through the services, and 
Mr. Ambrose felt that it did not become him to 
cast a stone at poor Benny, holding that he him- 
self had done too much thus far to close his eyes. 

I, Did he say how the experiment fared ? 

H. So well that he means to try it with the men. 

L Now that is good news. One such case is 
worth more than a dozen theories, because it shows 
that the thing is practical. It can be done. And 
it ought to be done. There is charming Rose 
Crichton fretting in her new home because Fred 
has to be at the store so much. It is the trial of 
her Hfe, her one daily cause of vexation and useless 
longing. " It is a shame, and a disgrace, and an 
utter mistake," says Rose, who is apt to fall into 
the Pauline style when she is very much in ear- 
nest. " Just see how it is with Fred," she writes, 
and I brought the letter along on purpose to read 
it to you '^ in this connection," as the ministers 
say, '' and I can't find out that it is really mucli 
better with any gentlemen, except that salaried 
ones are less their own masters. But those who 
own business are so foolish that they won't give 
themselves much more time. Fred has to be at 
the store at half past seven, — then he has an hour 
at noon to come home a mile for dinner, and 
can't leave till half past six at night. There is 
never a holiday, — even on the regular holidays, 



240 SUMMER REST, 

Christmas, Thanksgiving, and so forth, he can't 
get more than half a holiday, and the whole rest 
and recreation of the year has to be crowded into 
three weeks in August. Ah, but Sunday is a 
blessed day ! I never fully appreciated it before 
we were married. We go to church and Sunday 
school in the morning, and in the afternoon, if it is 
pleasant, Fred takes a long walk, and I go with 
him when I can. Don't you think it is right ? I 
am quite clear on that point. You see he can 
never take me anywhere in the week days. I 
think every store should be closed by five o'clock, 
and then, as soon as people get used to that, by 
four ; and then there should be a half-holiday once 
in a week or two for men in every kind of busi- 
ness." There you have Rose's opinion, '' all for 
love and nothing for reward." 

IT. You can hardly expect the traffic of the 
world to turn on a girl's wish to have her Fred 
come home to an early supper. 

I. Now, Halicarnassus, excuse me, but that is 
a stupid speech for you to make. Sometimes you 
are thoughtful and sensible and reasonable, and it 
is really pleasant to talk with you. And again you 
seem somehow to shut up all your sense in a shell, 
and turn into a fossil, and one cannot make the 
least headway with you. 

Instead of being shamed by this reproof, Hali- 
carnassus only fanned himself languidly with his 
hat, and hummed some silly old song or other. 



THE KINGDOM COMING, 241 

" If I had a donkey 

And he would n't go, 
Do you think I'd wallop him ? 
O no, no, no ! " 

Sometimes there is no getting on with him. He 
takes a position from mere whim, and holds it. 
The most faithful and searching rebuke produces 
no visible effect. He looks upon it as a good joke. 
All your earnestness is so much phenomenon, help- 
ing him to analyze your character, but bearing not 
the least on the question. I feared he was ossify- 
ing into such a mood at the present time. But I 
went on. 

I. You may depend upon it, if the traffic of the 
world considered more the nature of girls and boys 
too, there would be less sin in the world. And I 
should like to know if it is not better for traffic to 
wait upon souls than it is for souls to wait upon 
traffic? Business is for man's uses; man is not 
made for business. 

H. Yes, I have seen a good many men who did 
not seem made for business. 

L Fred Crichton has good principles and a good 
wife. So the harm done him is chiefly in the way 
of cheapening, not corrupting life. It is made less 
productive, less satisfying, than it ought to be. But 
many a man who has not firm principles or a good 
wife suffers a sore injury. Worldly people are 
not expected to act from other than worldly mo- 
tives, but the Church professes to stand on higher 
11 p 



242 SUMMER REST, 

ground. Now if the religious community would 
at once and resolutely decree that all in her em- 
ploy should have time for rest, how long would it 
be before the irreligious community would follow 
suit ? 

H, Don't bring whist into theology. 

L Whist yourself! No, we are too greedy. 
We will not miss a chance for making money. 
We cannot work on Sunday. The law forbids it. 
So we can afford to be religious then, but as for 
wasting good working time in religion, it is not 
to be thought of.. 

H, By " religion " I suppose you now mean 
recreation, holiday amusements. 

L Yes, sir, I do, notwithstanding your sneer. 
If from love to God and love to man, or, more 
simply, because he thinks he ought, an employer 
gives his men a half-holiday every week, or an 
hour or two of leisure every day, I call it religion, 
and religion of the very best kind. And I be- 
lieve in it far more than in the piety that keeps 
every one at hard labor all the week and arrogates 
to itself superior virtue because it would keep 
them at hard labor on Sunday if it could. 

H. Yet the numerous hohdays of Europe do 
not seem to have had a good effect on the peo- 
ple. 

L A carnival every now and then is a different 
thing from a regularly recurring day, or hour of 
rest, — so different that you cannot reason from 



THE KINGDOM COMING, 243 

the one to the other. The regular rest falls at 
once into the general plan, has its portion allotted 
to it duly hke any day. An hour at the close of 
every work-day for fifty days is a boon where fifty 
hours of idleness taken together might be a bane. 
Besides, I suspect there is a greater intensity of 
w^ork in our country than in any other. 

jBT. I was looking at one of the base-ball matches 
on Boston Common one day, and I overheard a 
portly old gentleman at my elbow say to another, 
" Two thousand people here ; that is four thou- 
sand dollars thrown away." That was a con- 
scientious old codger, no doubt. 

L " Thrown away ! " The most wasteful habit 
we have is squandering time, and happiness, and 
health for money, which in the greatest quantity 
is no equivalent. 

H, They who feel no need of amusement them- 
selves are apt to suppose that no one else needs it. 

L Never a soul was made that did not need 
amusement. Only some can make it for them- 
selves and others need to have it provided. 

H. I did not say those who have no need, but 
those who feel no need. Stick a pin there. 

/. Well, that is a proper distinction. Why, I 
can count up ever so many people, excellent per- 
sons, fathers and mothers in Israel, who do not 
know in the least what ails them, but really they 
are languishing for want of concert, and opera, 
and theatre, and dancing — 



244 SUMMER REST. 

S, Here, here ! What heresies are jou pour- 
ing forth ? I will have you read out of meeting ! 

L Heresy or orthodoxy, it is truth. Their 
lives lack ideality. They are painfully empty. 
They need something fine and grand to take them 
above the plane of mere labor. 

H, Something finer and grander than religion ! 

L Religion is not a definite department, — a 
ponderable substance, something visible, and tan- 
gible, and to be disposed of. Religion is more 
like air. You may furnish a house with every 
comfort and every elegance, and if it has no air 
it will be only a tomb. If you fill it with air 
and nothing else, you will die of starvation. To 
make air a substitute for food or warmth or shel- 
ter, or to make these a substitute for air, is fatal. 
So if you furnish your life with employment, recr 
reation, leisure, but close it against religion, you 
fail at a vital point, and if you undertake to ex- 
clude employment or recreation or leisure, and 
put religion in its stead, you are in equally im- 
minent danger. Religion, like air, takes up no 
room. What it finds vacant it leaves vacant. But 
it permeates everything. You want your life just 
as full as if there were no such thing as religion, 
and when it is thus full you want a steady cur- 
rent of religion to fiow in upon it and flood it 
and sink into it, so that everything should be as 
it were tainted with religion. 

S. A felicitous expression ! 



THE KINGDOM COMING, 245 

I, Well, everything should savor of religion, 
if that is any better. Love to God and love to 
man should, — -not be harped upon, — but should 
be the living soul, the hidden principle, of life. 

H, You picture the mind as a room, which is 
too mechanical. It is more like a field. 

I, And religion ripens the seeds which have 
been planted in it ? yes. But never mind the fig- 
ures. What I want to get at is, that religion does 
not occupy any place, and cannot be made a sub- 
stitute for anything that does occupy place. It 
may save you in the last extremity, but it saves 
from despair, not from death. So of course you 
cannot take out anything which the soul really 
needs, and expect to fill up the void with religion. 
But that is just what many attempt to do. And 
what is the result ? The young people, denied re- 
fining and ennobling pleasures guided by experi- 
ence, fall into coarse and degrading ones. That is 
one very common result. Another, almost uni- 
versal, is that the life of religious communities be- 
comes thin and meagre. We take a good deal of 
satisfaction in deploring the hollowness and frivol- 
ity of fashionable circles, and doubtless they- are 
often hollow and frivolous, but if you compare 
the conversation that takes place at the sewing- 
circle, or the tea-party, or the Fair of the Or- 
thodox or the Baptist or the Methodist Society 
and that which takes place at the dinner-party 
or the evening party of the gay leader of fashion, 



246 SUMMER REST. 

you will hardly find any more spirituality, any 
more lofty and generous views, more breadth or 
depth or quickness of insight, any more traces 
of inward experience in the one than in the other. 
There seems to be little more real acquaintance 
with the Divine Being, or conception of the Di- 
vine character, in the one than in the other. If 
you think, my hearers, that by going to sleep you 
will hjish me up any sooner, I fear you are doomed 
to disappointment. It clears my mind wonder- 
fully to empty it. I do not know what I think 
myself till I talk it over. (Halicarnassus nod- 
ded, but whether it were a nod of wakeful assent 
or sleepy indifference was not quite certain.) A 
fine woman is a fine woman wherever you find 
her; but I have found fine women as often in 
gay society, in opera-going, and theatre-going, and 
party-giving society as in any other. The moral 
perpendicular seems to be as often attained out 
of church as in it. If I know that a man is a 
member of the Church, I am confident he is not 
a drunkard, nor a thief, nor an adulterer ; but I 
am by no means sure that he is not unjust, extor- 
tioner, and very much like the publicans. Church 
teaching, or pulpit teaching, or whatever you may 
call it, — you know what I mean, or would know 
if you were awake, — does not, as far as I can 
see, produce any more sweetness of disposition, or 
charity of judgment, or love to one's neighbor, or 
any more divorce from the pleasures of the world 



THE KINGDOM COMING. 247 

and of sense, from envy and backbiting, than the 
teachings of the stage and the ball-room. It is not 
in the least more heavenly-minded to be discuss- 
ing your minister's wife, than Hackett or Char- 
lotte Cushman. I do not feel any more devo- 
tional when I turn with the audience to face Miss 
Jones as she is trilling out her solo, in her best 
clothes Sunday morning, than I do or did when 
listening to Patti singing her songs in her best 
clothes Monday evening. 

H. O, Patti was a sweet little singing-bird. I 
hope they will not spoil her and marry her and 
bury her over there. Is it the opera you are 
speaking of and the theatre ? No harm in the 
thing itself, of course. It is the attendant evils 
that make it an evil. 

I, My friend, no emergency forces you to speak ; 
but if you do speak, pray do not say a thing which 
has been said a hundred times before, and had no 
substance to begin with. 

H. Libenter tuis prceceptis obsequar^ si te prius 
idem facientem videro. 

(Let not the unlearned reader be terrified by 
this show of erudition. It is only Latin Lessons, 
and too ill-mannered for our mother tongue.) 

I. But whenever I repeat an old truth, it is to 
give it new force. When you do it, it is from 
poverty of resources. Observe, now, the stand- 
ing argument against these things is not them- 
selves, but their attendant evils. But you and I 



248 SUMMER REST, 

have been to theatre many times. Did we ever 
drink there, or gamble, or fall into bad company ? 

S. You were in good company, without cavil. 

L That was a rhetorical question, and you need 
not have troubled yourself to answer it ; but why 
shall we fear that others will not fare as well as 
we ? If the evils that cling to the outskirts of an 
institution are a reason for the abolition of the in- 
stitution, theatres are not the only things that must 
go by the board. Precisely the same kind of vice 
that attaches to the theatre attaches to the camp- 
meeting ; but I have never heard that our Meth- 
odist brethren propose to give up their camp-meet- 
ings in consequence. What they do is, by vigilant 
efforts, by an efficient police, to check the evil as 
far as possible ; but they have their camp-meetings 
every year, in spite of the drunkenness and immo- 
rality of their camp-followers. Who can show 
cause why theatres may not be conducted on the 
same principle ? Let them be supported by Chris- 
tian people, and become a school of Christian man- 
ners and morals. Nobody objects to the dialogues 
spoken in the schools. Let a theatre be the same 
thing on a larger scale. 

H, The experiment has been often tried without 
success. 

/. It is high time, then, to try it with success. 

H, You will find also that some of the best per- 
sons on the stage are the most opposed to having 
their friends adopt the actor's profession. They 



THE KINGDOM COMING: 249 

believe it to be hurtful to health and to character. 
Is it right to encourage a profession whicli, in the 
judgment of those who know most about it, is fatal 
to those w^ho adopt it ? 

L That I cannot tell. If what you say is true, 
it must just stand on the jper contra side. But it is 
inconsistent in us to bring up such an objection in 
any other spirit than that of benevolence, for we 
encourage similarly hurtful exhibitions. Our sem- 
inaries and high schools have their public examina- 
tions. The public rushes in and fills the school- 
room. The teachers, though they are often young 
women, are forced to conduct their classes through 
a recitation in the presence of the promiscuous 
assembly. There is jast as much publicity about 
it as there is about acting in a theatre, with the 
additional crueltv, that the teachers do not like 
their part, and act it from compulsion only, 
while the actress does like hers, and acts it from 
choice. 

H. Yet very often — 

/. Please not keep thrusting in when I am talk- 
ing. You don't give me a chance to say any- 
thing. (I am sure he laughed under his hat, 
but I am proof against ridicule. He has plenty 
of opportunity to promulgate his views, but just 
now I have the floor.) In these same thronged 
public halls young girls not out of their teens 
go through their recitations, face the great audi- 
ence alone to read a composition, straining their 
11* 



250 SUMMER REST, 

girlish voices to unnatural and unmusical loud- 
ness — 

H, Queen Victoria — 

/. There you are at it again ! I suppose you are 
going to say that Queen Victoria reads her speech 
to the Parhament. But she is public property, 
and nothing to the purpose. The point is, that we 
object to the world's putting women on the stage, 
and yet we put our young girls on the stage with- 
out scruple ; and not only to recite and to read 
composition, but to play plays ; and not only plays, 
but poor plays. I have been at school-exhibitions, 
some in church and some in school-house, and 
have seen young girls take part in dialogues that 
were coarse and pert, dialogues whose direct ten- 
dency was to make these girls forward, flippant, 
unladylike, and disagreeable. 

H. Amen ! 

I. I knew that you would agree with me, and, 
what is more, I know that you have been agree- 
ing with me, only more so, all along, in spite of 
your futile attempts at objections. But I do not 
mean to go on a crusade for theatres. I do not 
care about them particularly, though I do main- 
tain it would be an advantage to more than one 
community I wot of if it could go to a good play 
once a week or so, and thereby enlarge its sphere 
of knowledge, get its thoughts turned away from 
itself, so as to have something to talk about be- 
sides its own affairs ; for the constant contempla- 



THE KINGDOM COMING. 251 

tion of self is fatal to the whole man. Selfishness 
gets into religion, and is just as poisonous there 
as anywhere else. To hear some of our good 
Christian brethren speak in meeting, one would 
suppose the main object of life is to save your 
soul ; now I suspect if people would let their 
souls alone and pay their debts, and keep their 
promises, and try to make everybody happy, — 
children and horses and dogs and cats, — and 
not be suspicious and envious, and not offend 
the tastes or the feelings of their associates, and 
keep their communication with Heaven always 
open, it would be better every way. In this great 
world, this great universe, this great eternity, it 
does not seem to be very dignified, nor very 
ennobling, to be all the while coddling your own 
one little soul. We ought to be filled with God, 
not with ourselves. 

H. Our souls may not be as big as the universe, 
but they are a pretty important object to us. But 
I was thinking of the tenacity with which society 
clings to the theatre, in spite of all religious op- 
position ; and seeing this, it is singular that we 
do not recognize the power of dramatic repre- 
sentation, and take possession of it in the name 
of the Lord. 

L It is so much easier to condemn outright and 
b}^ wholesale than it is to discriminate. 

H, Easier in the process, but bitter hard in 
the result. 



252 SUMMER REST. 

L It seems to me, Halicarnassus, that there is 
something in everything — 

H, Yes, dear, I think so myself. 

L But I mean that there is some truth in 
every great, spreading falsehood, — a core of vir- 
tue in every vice ; at least, it is something like 
that. I cannot seem to get at it precisely, but 
if you study closely and wisely the follies and vices 
of society, you will find out its real wisdom and 
goodness. 

H, What you mean is, I suppose, that our sins 
as well as our holinesses are in the line of our 
nature, and it is only by looking at both that you 
can find what nature is. 

L Yes, I rather think that is it; and having 
found that, we are to cut off only the sin, not the 
nature itself. Now you speak of taking posses- 
sion of the theatre. I would take possession of 
everything which is confessed to be in itself, or 
to be capable of becoming sinless, and which is 
seen to be agreeable, and would bring it into the 
service of man. For it is a question between 
liberty and license, between rational pleasure and 
irrational excess, between a natural life and un- 
natural death. Nature, nature is what we need 
to knoAv. 

H, And we should know it by theorizing less, 
and dogmatizing less, and observing more. 

L And by looking at other communities, and 
other nations, and other ages instead of confin- 



THE KINGDOM COMING, 253 

irig our observations to our one little spot in time 
and space, and assuming that we are the people 
and wisdom shall die with us. Think now how 
fair a. thing our society might be if we would cull 
the choicest flowers of every age and nation to 
adorn it, — retain all that is strong in New Eng- 
land life and combine with it all that is sweet in 
foreign life. If we could be as graceful as we 
are energetic ! If we could know how to play 
as well as how to work ! 

H. We do not know how to work until we 
know how to play. 

L Not truly, for they are one in aim and both 
alike religious. 

jff. Do you suppose you will accomplish any- 
thing from all your lucubrations? 

/. Oh ! No. That is, if you bring it down 
to a plain statement of fact, — no. 

Coleridge used to answer his opponents by cour- 
teously admitting their objections, and then going 
on with his magnificent harangues as if nothing 
had been said. That is the way of the world. 
And sometimes it seems as if one might as well let 
everything go and just go with it. But that is 
impossible. And, besides, for all this logical de- 
spair, in my feeling there is a great assurance of 
hope, a confidence of expectation. I know the 
fixity of things is terrible, yet I feel if you speak 
it is. done. Especially in summer. No summer 
opens but I feel it has something beautiful for me 



254 SUMMER REST, 

in its gift. Some strange happiness, some mar- 
vellous good fortune is about to befall. The tenth 
Avatar descends. 

JT. What form does it take ? 

L No form at all. Do not ask me now any of 
your miserable mathematical questions. It is only 
that something is going to happen. 

IT, That is enough. I am convinced. 

I, I know that nothing ever does happen, but 
all the same I am filled with a vague expectation, 
— the foretaste of coming bliss. Do not laugh. 
Heaven opens in the summer-time. Her sun- 
shine is the shadow of the angels. Every power 
feels the thrill of its coming development. Every 
need hears through the still air the far, faint music 
of its answering wealth. The wildest dream finds 
dear fulfilment. Nothing is too high to be hoped 
for, too sweet to be believed. 

O, let me tell you the ideal life which Summer 
paints on her lilies and roses — 

And we talked on through the pulsing hours of 
what you perhaps would not care to hear, nor I 
to report, till the miller's horn rung sonorous 
through the woods, — preconcerted signal of his 
completed work ; in obedience to which we gath- 
ered our goods and chattels and returned home- 
ward, no less slowly, a little more silent, no 
more sad, under the lengthening shadows of the 
afternoon. 




KING JAMES THE FIRST. 

WAS determined no longer to resort 
to a course of humiliating strategy, not 
to say trickery. So the next time I 
had something to say, I waited till 
there came a rainy day. Then stealthily watch- 
ing the movements of my victim, I saw him enter 
his lair for the purpose, as he informed me, of 
tracing a quotation to Aristophanes or Helioga- 
baUis, or some of those old masters. He was very 
sure it was there, but it had hitherto eluded him. 
He should find it now if it took him all day, since 
it was rainy, and he had nothing in particular on 
hand. Fatal admission ! Did he see the eyes of 
the wild beast in me flash exultation? ''Que7n 
Deus vult perdere^^^ and so forth ; but I held my 
peace till he should have become thoroughly ab- 
sorbed in his pursuit, and off his guard. Then 
I advanced. So-ho ! There lay my fine gentle- 
man and scholar, stretched on his lounge fast 
asleep. Research indeed ! The fact is, I am be- 
coming sceptical as to the quantity and quality 
of masculine scholarship. The popular belief, 



256 SUMMER REST. 

which I have hitherto shared, is, that men who 
have been through college, with all its antece- 
dents and consequents, can 

*^ speak Greek 
As naturally as pigs squeak; 
That Latin is no more difficile 
Than to a blackbird ^t is to whistle " ; 

but I find that men who have graduated with all 
the honors fight shy of Greek, and have no in- 
ordinate passion for Latin, preferring their own 
tongue wherein they were bom as decidedly as 
we unlearned rabble. Even Atalanta in Calydon, 
the work of that wondrous man, if indeed he be 
a man, who not only reads Greek, but writes it, 
and not only writes it, but writes verses in it, — 
even Atalanta, I find, is not very easily imposed 
upon an intelligent community. '' Any new books 
lately ? " says my friend the Secretary. 

" Yes," I answered, blandly, " ' Atalanta in 
Calydon ' has just come in." 

" ' Atalanta in Calydon,' a Greek tragedy." 

"Don't want it." 

"It is not written in Greek. It is only mod- 
elled upon the Greek, I suppose. It gives Greek 
life and thought. It is really very — " 

"Don't want it." 

My friend, the Judge, is recovering from an 
illness. I meet his wife in an unfrequented street, 
and proffer Atalanta, sugar-coated with various 



KING JAMES THE FIRST, 257 

toothsome authors. She declares (with a misgiv- 
ing which she cannot conceal from me) that the 
Judge will be delighted. I promise to send the 
books betimes next morning; but an early bird 
hops up on the door-step, and chirps out, "Papa 
says he is much obliged for the books, but he 
does n't care for the Greek." 

Happy they who are content to know nothing. 
To hum and hover in the sunshine over broad fields 
of learning, gathering only honey-dew from the 
cups of the sweetest flowers, — it is hardly worth 
the name of study, but it is wondrous pleasant. 
If Queen Caroline finds entertainment before 
breakfast in Butler's Analogy, by all means let 
her eat the fat and drink the sweet of it to her 
heart's content. If people like to calculate eclipses, 
it is an innocent amusement ; let none gainsay or 
resist them. It would be very mortifying if none 
of us knew anything about it, and we had to go 
to England for our Almanacs. But as for turning 
Bishop Butler, or sines and cosines, into moral 
duty, after one has left school, and bruising one's 
spirit over them, I never could see that it was 
desirable. Augite and andesite, diorite and do- 
lerite, give an uncertain sound. Glauber salts are 
but indifferent welcome, even when decked out 
with the honorary titles of Na O SO3 + 10 HO. 
The stars shine scarcely more serene for knowing 
their altitude and azimuth ; but when Geology, 
from her primeval rocks, gropes back into the 

Q 



258 SUMMER REST. 

twilight of the dawn, or reaches down into the 
underworld to set the whole earth aglow; when 
Chemistry leaves her alphabet to swathe the sun 
in robes of fire, to feed him with endless streams 
of meteors, and give him a universe to work his 
magic in ; w^hen Astronomy lays down her math- 
ematics and takes up her pencil of light, to paint 
the belts of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, piles 
up her mountains and scoops out her valleys in 
the moon, peoples space with suns and suns with 
souls, and, sweeping world around world and gath- 
ering circle upon circle, binds them fast in one 
radiant zone of life around the central orb, till 

" Every sphere can, swinging, hear 
The ripples of our atmosphere, 
The growing circles of our prayer ; 
Circling beyond all time, all place. 
And breaking with its finite grace 
Upon dim shores of God's illimitable space," 

their charm commences. You see how it is; as 
it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, 
fools rush in w^here angels fear to tread. Where 
science leaves the solid ground of fact, and spreads 
her wings for fancy-flights, where knowledge melts 
away into poetry, and induction becomes conjec- 
ture, all hail, science, knowledge, induction ! Go 
on, wise men. Watch out the night with your 
stars, singe your eyebrows with the fiery breath 
of the genii you have caught, but not tamed, in 
your prison-jars, hammer up the rocks steadfastly 
chip by chip, till you have broken the spirit of 



KING JAMES THE FIRST, 259 

their secret. We, sitting by the ingle-side on 
winter evenings, or resting under the cool shadows 
of the summer-time, enter into your reward. All 
your weary work makes pleasant paths for us. 
We are not in love with your processes, but we 
have a warm glow of greeting for your results. 

You are doubtless disgusted, Messrs. Magi, and 
perhaps not without reason. I am ready to confess 
that, if you look at it as learning, it is, like my 
friend's silver, all sham, but if you look at it as life, 
it is, like my friend herself, all sincerity. And 
after all, is not life better than learning ? When 
you will tell what good your science does you, if 
it does not make you happy, of what advantage 
it is to you to unlock the treasures of antiquity, 
if to you those treasures are mere rubbish, what 
boots it with incessant care strictly to meditate 
a thankless muse, then it will be time enough to 
reconsider. Meanwhile I do but copy yourselves. 
You do not, as a general thing, take all knowledge 
to be your province, and if you do, you enter into 
possession of but a very small part of it. You 
select from the Universe your specialty, and I 
select from your selection mine. You skim the 
cream of thought, and I the ereme de la creme^ 
and we are both suited, with only this difference, 
that you have the name of savant and I the name 
of smatterer. All well so long as we wear our 
honors smilingly, — though it is pleasant now 
and then to strut in stolen plumes. And Web- 



260 SUMMER REST, 

ster's Dictionary is such a royal road to fame ! 
Thither flock from every quarter the choice 
phrases of dead and living tongues, and whoso- 
ever will may garnish his speech with store of 
polyglotic mysteries, which shall speak to the un- 
initiated of boundless wealth in reserve. And 
surely, to elicit the admiration, the envy, and 
the wrath of the ignoble crowd who do not own 
the great Unabridged, and who cannot therefore 
understand your foreign lingo, is a pleasure not 
to be lightly esteemed or foregone. 

But all I meant to say, — though you will never 
believe it, seeing I have said so much,^ — was, that, 
not pretending to know anything, and never hav- 
ing been in a situation from which it would be 
expected that I should know anything, I am not 
obliged to keep up appearances, and can afford to 
like Atalanta. It does not in the least trouble me 
that I do not always know what Althaea, and Cho- 
rus, and Meleager are talking about. The rhyme, 
the rhythm, the melodious jingle, do not depend 
upon logical sequences. Why be distressed to un- 
derstand everything? Why rave against a beau- 
tiful, fruitful darkness star-sown with splendor ? 
That is one thing to like the book for, — because 
it is not to be understood ; because it is far, and 
strange, and ideal ; because you can read at it 
forever. 

Some psychical influence conveyed my mood 
to the soul of my Sleeping Beauty. Wandering 



KING JAMES THE FIRST, 261 

in his distant dream-land, he became evidently 
conscious that trouble was brewing at home, 
threatening his supremacy. An appalling sight 
meets his opening eyes. It is I and my manu- 
script. There is no escape through the rain, and 
then that fatal confession of leisure ! His doom 
settles down upon him. 

"Here I am," I cry, smiling sweetly, "like 
Christian with his precious roll." 

"And here /am," he growls and scowls, "like 
Christian with his grievous burden." 

I make no parley, but advance at once into the 
middle of things by unfolding my manuscript. 

" What is it all about ? " he at length asks. 

" It is a historical piece." 

He stares at me. "My dear, this is madness! 
Sheer midsummer madness ! You know nothing 
about history." 

I. Don't I? History is philosophy, teaching 
by example, and always repeats itself. Christo- 
pher Columbus, a native of Genoa — 

IT. You know a few bald facts that have been 
sifted out and set before you ; but for anything 
like independent investigation — 

I. This, perhaps, is more in the nature of biog- 
raphy. It is a kind of personal history. 

H. What person ? 

Z I have called it King James the First. 

S. Have you found any sources of information 
that escaped the eyes of Macaulay and — 



262 SUMMER REST. 

L Yes, Halicarnassus, I have. I think I know 

a good deal more about this matter than Macaulay. 

a. Go on. Read. Least said, soonest mended. 

KING JAMES THE FIRST. 

A merry monarch two years and four months 
old- 
s'. O, that is it, is it ? History in petticoats. 
/. Don't interrupt. Now I shall have to be- 
gin all over again. The beauty of the paper de- 
pends upon its unity and continuity. You know 
that I always listen to your remarks with resigna- 
tion if not with pleasure, as it is my duty to do. 
But I particularly dislike to be interrupted. 

KING JAMES THE FIRST. 

A merry monarch two years and four months 
old. 

If we could have stood by when the world 
was a-making, — could have sniffed the escaping 
gases, as they volatilized through the air, — could 
have seen and heard the swash of the waves, 
when the whole world was, so to speak, in hot 
water, — could have watched the fiery tumult 
gradually soothing itself into shapely, stately palms 
and ferns, cold-blooded Pterodactyles, and gigan- 
tic, but gentle Megatheriums, till it was refined, 
at length, into sunshine and lilies and Robin 
Redbreasts, — we fancy we should have been in- 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 263 

tensely interested. But a human soul is a more 
mysterious thing than this round world. Its 
principles firmer than the hills, its passions more 
tumultuous than the sea, its purity resplendent 
as the light, its power too swift and subtile for 
human analysis, — what wonder in heaven above 
or earth beneath can rival this mystic, mighty 
mechanism ? Yet it is formed almost under our 
eyes. The voice of God, " Let there be light," 
we do not hear ; the stir of matter thrilled into 
mind we do not see ; but the after-march goes 
on before our gaze. We have only to look, and, 
lo ! the mountains are slowly rising, the valleys 
scoop their levels, the sea heaves against its bar- 
riers, and the chaotic soul evolves itself from its 
nebulous, quivering light, from its plastic softness, 
into a world of repose, of use, of symmetry, and 
stability. This mysterious soul, when it first 
passed within our vision, was only not hidden 
within its mass of fleshly life, a seed of spirituality 
deep-sunk in a pulp of earthliness. Passing away 
from us in ripened perfection, we behold a being 
but little low^er than the angels, heir of God and 
joint heir with Christ, crowned with glory and 
honor and immortality. 

Come up, then, Jamie, my King, into the pres- 
ence of the great congregation ! There are poets 
here, and 'philosophers, wise men of the East who 
can speak of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in 
Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out 



264 SUMMER REST. 

of the wall : also of beasts, and of fowl, and of 
creeping things, and of fishes. But fear them 
not, little Jamie ! you are of more value, even to 
science, than many fishes. Wise as these Magi 
are, yesterday they were such as you, and such 
they must become again or ever they shall enter 
the kingdom of heaven. Come up, little Jamie, 
into the hall of audience ! Blue eyes and broad 
brow, sunny curls, red lips, and dainty, sharp 
teeth, stout little arm, strong little hand, sturdy 
little figure, and most still and steadfast gaze: 
truly it is the face and form of a king, — sweet- 
ness in power, unconsciousness in royalty. 

" Jamie, you are a little beauty ! You are too 
handsome to live ! " 

"No ! " says Jamie, vehemently, for the fiftieth 
time, stamping the royal foot and scowling the 
royal brows. " Gamma say not too ha' some ! " 

" But you are a young Apollo." 

" No my Tollo ! " 

" What are you, then ? " 

" I goo e baw," which is Jametic for good little 
boy. 

This microcosm, like the macrocosm, may be 
divided into many departments. As the world 
is viewed geographically, geologically, historically, 
astronomically, so in this one little Jamie we have 
many Jamies. There is the Jamie philological, 
Jamie theological, Jamie psychological, Jamie emo- 
tional, Jamie social ; in fact, I can hardly think of 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 265 

any natural, moral, or mathematical science, on 
which a careful study of Jamie will not throw 
some light. Would you frame a theory of meta- 
physics ? Consult Reid, and Locke, and Hamil- 
ton warily, for they are men, subject to like 
mistakes as we are ; but observe Jamie with ut- 
most confidence and the closest care, for he is 
the book of God, and will teach only truth, if 
your eye is single to perceive truth. Theologi- 
cally, Jamie has points superior to both Andover 
and Princeton ; he is never in danger of teaching 
for doctrine the commandments of men ; nor have 
passion and prejudice in him any power to conceal, 
but, on the contrary, they illuminate truth. For 
the laws of language, mark how the noble tree 
of human speech springs in his soul from mustard- 
seed into fair and fruitful symmetry. In good 
sooth, one marvels that there should be so much 
error in the world with children born and growing 
up all over it. If Jamie were, like Jean Paul, 
the Only, I should expect philosophers to journey 
from remotest regions to sit at his feet and learn 
the ways of God to man. Every one who pre- 
sumed to teach his fellows should be called upon 
to produce his diploma as a graduate of Jamie, 
or forfeit all confidence in his sagacity. But, with 
a baby in every other house, how is it that we 
continually fall out by the way ? It must be that 
children are not advantageously used. We pet 
them, and drug them, and spoil them ; we trick 

12 



266 SUMMER REST. 

them out in silks and fine array ; we cross and 
thwart and irritate them ; we lay unholy hands 
upon them, but are seldom content to stand aside 
and see the salvation of the Lord. 

Tug, tug, tug, one little foot wearisomely rang- 
ing itself beside the other, and two hands helping 
both : that is Jamie coming up stairs. Patter, 
patter, patter : that is Jamie trotting through the 
entry. He never walks. Rattle, clatter, shake : 
Jamie is opening the door. Now he marches in. 
Flushed with exertion, and exultant over his bril- 
liant escapade from the odious surveillance below, 
he presents himself peering on tiptoe just over 
the arm of the big chair, and announces his 
errand, — 

"Come t' see Baddy." 

" Baddy does n't want you." 

" Baddy do.'' 

Then, in no wise daunted by his cool welcome, 
he works his way up into the big chair with much 
and indiscriminate pulling : if it is a sleeve, if it 
is a curtain, if it is a table-cloth whereon repose 
many pens, much ink and paper, and knick- 
knacks without number, nothing heeds he, but 
clutches desperately at anything which will help 
him mount, and so he comes grunting in, all 
tumbled and twisted, crowds down beside me, 
and screws himself round to face the table, pok- 
ing his knees and feet into me with serene un- 
concern. Then, with a pleased smile lighting up 



KINO JAMES THE FIRST. 267 

his whole face, he devotes himself to literature. 
A small, brass-lined cavity in the frame of the 
writing-desk serves him for an inkstand. Into 
that he dips an old, worn-out pen with conse- 
quential air, and assiduously traces nothing on bits 
of paper. Of course I am reduced to a masterly 
inactivity, with him wriggling against my right 
arm, let alone the danger hanging over all my 
goods and chattels from this lawless httle Vandal 
prowling among them. Shall I send him away ? 
Yes, if I am an insensate clod, clean given over 
to stupidity and selfishness ; if I count substance 
nothing, and shadow all things ; if I am content 
to dwell with frivolities forever, and have for 
eternal mysteries nothing but neglect. For sup- 
pose I break in upon his short-lived delight, thrust 
him out grieved and disappointed, with his brave 
brow clouded, a mist in his blue eyes, and — that 
heart-rending sight — his dear little under-lip and 
chin all quivering and puckering. Well, I go back 
and write an epic poem. The printers mangle it ; 
the critics fall foul of it ; it is lost in going through 
the post-office ; it brings me ten letters, asking 
an autograph, on six of which I have to pay 
postage. There is vanity and vexation of spirit, 
besides eighteen cents out of pocket, and the 
children crying for bread. I let him stay. A 
little, innocent life, fearfully dependent on others 
for light, shines out with joyful radiance, wherein 
I rejoice. To-morrow he will have the measles, 



268 SUMMER REST. 

and the mumps, and the croup, and the whooping- 
cough, and scarlatina ; and then come the alpha- 
bet, and Latin grammar, and politics, and his own 
boys getting into trouble : but to-day, when his 
happiness is in my hands, I may secure it, and 
never can any one wrest from him the sunshine 
I may pour into his happy little heart. O, the 
time comes so soon, and comes so often, that Love 
can only look with bitter sorrow upon the sorrow 
which it has no power to mitigate ! 

Language is unceremoniously resolved into its 
original elements by Jamie. He is constitution- 
ally opposed to inflection, which, as he must be 
devoid of prejudice, may be considered indispu- 
table proof of the native superiority of the English 
to other languages. He is careful to include in 
his sentences all the important words, but he has 
small respect for particles, and the disposition of 
his words waits entirely upon his moods. Mt/ usu- 
ally does duty for L '' Want that Uncle Frank 
gave me hossey," with a finger pointing to the 
mantel-piece, is just as flexible to his use as " Want 
the hossey that Uncle Frank gave me." " Where 
Baddy can be?" he murmurs softly to himself, 
w^hile peering behind doors and sofas in playing 
hide-and-seek. Hens are cud-dah, a flagrant ex- 
ample of Onomatopoeia. The cradle is a cay-go ; 
corn-balls are ball-corn ; snow-bird, bird-snow ; 
and all his rosy nails are toe-nails. He has been 
drilled into meet response to ''How d' ye do?" but 



KINO JAMES THE FIRST, 269 

demonstrates the mechanical character of his reply 
by responding to any question that has the you and 
how sounds in it, as, '' What do you think of 
that ? " " How did you do it ? " '' How came 
you by this ? " '' Fit-tee well." 

But his performances are not all mechanical. 
He has a stock of poetry and orations, of which he 
delivers himself at bedtime with a degree of resig- 
nation, — that being the only hour in which he 
can be reduced to sufficient quietude for recita- 
tion ; nor is that because he loves quiet more, but 
bed less. It is a very grievous misfortune, an un- 
reasonable and arbitrary requisition, that breaks in 
upon his busy life, interrupts him in the midst of 
driving to mill on an inverted chair, hauling wood 
in a ditto footstool, and other important matters, 
and sweeps him off to darkness and silence. So, 
with night-gown on, and the odious bed imminent, 
he puts off the evil day by compounding with 
the authorities and giving a public entertainment, 
in consideration of a quarter of an hour's delay. 
He takes large liberties with the text of his poems, 
but his rhetorical variations are of a nature that 
shows it is no vain repetition, but that he enters 
into the spirit of the poem. In one of his songs 
a person 

" Asked a sweet robin, one morning in May, 
That sung in the apple-tree over the way,'' 

what it was he was singing. 

" Don't you know ? he replied, you cannot guess wrong ; 
Don't you know I am singing my cold-water song '? " 



270 SUMMER REST. 

This Jamie intensifies thus, — 

" Do' know mj sing my co'-wotta song, hm ? " 

When he reaches the place where 

" Jack fell down 
Boke coAvn," 

he invariably leaves Gill to take care of herself, 
and closes with the pathetic moral reflection, " 'At 
too bad ! " Little Jack Horner, having put in his 
thumb and picked out a plum, is made to declare 
definitely and redundantly, — 

" My ga-ate big boy, jus' so big ! " 

He persists in praying, — 

" 'F I should die 'fore I wake up." 

Borne off to bed at last, in spite of every pretext 
for delay, tired Nature droops in the "fringed 
curtains " of his eyes, and gapes protractedly 
through his wide-dividing lips. 

'' I seepy," he cries, fighting off* sleep with the 
bravery of a major-general, — observing phenom- 
ena, in articulo somni^ with the accuracy and en- 
thusiasm of a naturalist, and reasoning from them 
wdth the skill of a born logician. 

A second prolonged and hearty gape, and 

"I two seepies," he cries, adding mathematics 
to his other accomplishments. 

And that is the last of Jamie, till the early 
morning brings him trudging up stairs, all curled 
and shining, to " hear Baddy say 'Boo ! ' " 

Total depravity, in Jamie's presence, is a doc- 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 271 

trine hard to be understood. Honestly speaking, 
he does not appear to have any more depravity 
than is good for him, — just enough to make him 
piquant, to give him a relish. He is healthy and 
hearty all day long. He eats no luncheon and 
takes no nap, is desperately hungry thrice a day 
and sleeps all night, going to bed at dark after a 
solitary supper of bread and butter, more espe- 
cially bread ; and he is good and happy. Laying 
aside the revelations of the Bible and of Doc- 
tors of Divinity, I should say that his nature is 
honest, simple, healthful, pure, and good. He 
shows no love for wrong, no inclination towards 
evil rather than good. He is affectionate, just 
generous, and truthful. He just lives on his sin- 
cere, fun-loving, playful, yet earnest life, from 
day to day, a pure and perfect example, to my 
eye, of what God meant children to be. I can- 
not see how he should be very different from 
what he is, even if he were in heaven, or if Adam 
had never sinned. There is so fearful an amount 
of, and so decided a bent towards, wickedness iu 
the world, that it seems as if nothing less than an 
inborn aptitude for wickedness can account for it ; 
yet, in spite of all theories and probabilities, here 
is Jamie, right under my ow^n eye, developing a 
far stronger tendency to love, kindness, sympa- 
thy, and all the innocent and benevolent qualities, 
than to their opposites. The wrong that he does 
seems to be more from fun and frohc, from sheer 



272 SUMMER REST. 

exuberance of animal spirits and intensity of 
mirthfalness, than anything else. He seems to 
be utterly devoid of malice, cruelty, revenge, or 
any evil motive. Even selfishness, which I take to 
be the fruitful mother of evil, is held in abeyance, 
is subordinate to other and nobler qualities. Candy 
is dearer to him than he knows how to express ; 
yet he scrupulously lays a piece on the mantel for 
an absent friend ; and though he has it in full 
view, and climbs up to it, and in the extremity of 
his longing has been known, I think, to chip off 
the least little bit with his sharp mouse-teeth, yet 
he endures to the end and delivers up the candy 
with an eagerness hardly surpassed by that with 
which he originally received it. Can self-denial 
go further ? 

It seems to me that the reason of Jamie's g-entle- 
ness and cheerfulness and goodness is, that he is 
comfortable and happy. The animal is in fine 
condition, and the spirit is therefore well served ; 
consequently, both go on together with little fric- 
tion. And I cannot but suspect that a great deal 
of human depravity comes from human misery. 
The destruction of the poor is his poverty. Little 
sickly, fretful, crying babies, heirs of worn nerves, 
fierce tempers, sad hearts, sordid tastes, half-tended 
or over-tended, fed on poison by the hand of love, 
nay, sucking poison from the breasts of love, trained 
to insubordination, abused by kindness, abused by 
cruelty, — that is the human nature from which 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 273 

largely we generalize, and no wonder the inference 
is total depravity. But human nature, distorted, 
defiled, degraded by centuries of misdealing, is 
scarcely human nature. Let us discover it before 
we define it. Let us remove accretions of long- 
standing moral and physical disease, before we pro- 
nounce sentence against the human nature. Let 
it become an established and universally recog- 
nized principle, as fixed and unquestionable as 
the right and wrong of theft and murder, that it is 
a ^n against God, a crime against the state, an 
outrage upon the helpless victim of their ignorance 
or wickedness, for an unhealthy man or woman tp 
become the parent of a child, and I think our 
creeds would presently undergo modification. Dis- 
ease seems to me a more fertile source of evil than 
depravity ; at least it is a more tangible source. 
We must have a race of healthy children, before 
we know what are the true characteristics of the 
human race. A child suffering from scrofula gives 
but a feeble, even a false representation of the 
grace, beauty, and sweetness of childhood. Pain, 
sickness, lassitude, deformity, a suffering life, a lin- 
gering death, are among the woful fruits of this 
dire disease, and it is acknowledged to be heredi- 
tary. Is not, then, every person afflicted with 
hereditary disease debarred as by a fiat of the 
Almighty from becoming a parent ? Every prin- 
ciple of honor forbids it. The popular stolidity 
and blindness on these subjects are astonishing. A 

12* 11 



274 SUMMER REST, 

young woman whose sisters have all died of con- 
sumption, and who herself exhibits unmistakable 
consumptive tendencies, is married, lives to bear 
three children in quick succession, and dies of con- 
sumption. Her friends mourn her and the sad 
separation from her bereaved little ones, but con- 
sole themselves with the reflection that these little 
ones have prolonged her life. But for her riiar- 
riage, she would have died years before. Of the 
three children born of this remedial marriage, two 
die in early girlhood of consumption. One l^ft, 
a puny infant, languishes into a puny maturity. 
Even as a remedy, what is this worth ? To die 
in her youth, to leave her suffering body in the 
dust and go quickly to God, with no responsibility 
beyond herself, or to pine through six years, en- 
during thrice, besides all her inherited debility, 
the pain and peril, the weariness and terror of 
child-bearing, to be at last torn violently and pre- 
maturely away from these beloved little ones, — 
which is the disease, and which the remedy? And 
when we look further on at the helpless little inno- 
cents, doomed to be the recipients of disease, early 
deprived of a mother's care, for which there is no 
substitute, dragging a load of weakness and pain, 
and forced down into the Valley of the Shadow of 
Death before years shall have blunted the point of 
its terrors, or religion robbed them of their sting, 
— it is only not atrocious because so unwittingly 
wrought. 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 275 

And bodily health is only one of the possessions 
which every child has a right to claim from its 
parents. Not merely health, but dispositions, 
traits, lie within human control far beyond the 
extent of common recognition. We say that char- 
acter is formed at fourteen or sixteen, and that 
training should begin in infancy ; but sometimes 
it seems to me, that, when the child is born, the 
work is done. All the rest is supplementary and 
subordinate. Subsequent effort has, indeed, much 
effect, but it cannot change quality. It may 
modify, but it cannot make anew. After neglect 
or ignorance may blight fair promise, but no after 
wisdom can bring bloom for blight. There are 
many by-laws whose workings we do not under- 
stand ; but the great, general law is so plain, that 
wayfaring folk, though fools, need not err therein. 
Ever one sees the unbridled passions of the father 
or mother raging in the child. Gentleness is born 
of gentleness, insanity of insanity, truth of truth. 
Careful and prayerful training may mitigate the 
innate evil ; but how much better that the young 
life should have sprung to light from seas of love 
and purity and peace ! Through God's mercy, 
the harsh temper, the miserly craving, the fretful 
discontent may be repressed and soothed ; but it 
is always up hill work, and never in this world 
wholly successful. Why be utterly careless in 
forming, to make conscious life a toilsome and 
thankless task of reforming? Since there is a 



276 SUMMER REST. 

time, and there comes no second, when the human 
being is under human control, — since the tiny- 
infant, once born, is a separate individual, is for 
all its remaining existence an independent human 
being, why not bring power to bear where form 
is amenable to power? Only let all the influ- 
ences of that sovereign time be heavenly, — and 
whatever may be true of total depravity, Christ 
has made such a thing possible, — and there re- 
mains no longer the bitter toil of thwarting, but 
only the pleasant work of cultivating Nature. 

It is idle, and worse than idle, to call in ques- 
tion the providence of God for disaster caused 
solely by the improvidence of man. The origin 
of evil may be hidden in the unfathomable ob- 
scurity of a distant, undreamed-of past, beyond 
the scope of mortal vision ; but by far the greater 
part of the evil that we see — which is the only 
evil for which we are responsible — is the result 
of palpable violation of Divine laws. Humanity 
here is as powerful as Divinity. The age of 
miracles is past. God does not interfere to con- 
travene His own laws. His part in man's creation 
He long ago defined, and delegates all the rest to 
the souls that He has made. Man is as able as 
God to check the destructive tide. And it is 
mere shuffling and shirking and beating the wind, 
for a people to pray God to mitigate the ill which 
they continually and unhesitatingly perpetuate and 
multiply. 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 277 

The great mistake made by the believers in 
total depravity is in counting the blood of the 
covenant of little worth. We admit that in Adam 
all die ; but we are slow to believe that in Christ 
all can be made alive. We abuse the doctrine. 
We make it a sort of scapegoat for shortcoming. 
But Christ has made Adamic depravity of no 
account. He came not alone to pardon sin, but 
to save people from sinning. Father-love, mother- 
love, and Christ-love are so mighty that together 
they can defy Satan, and, in his despite, the soul 
shall be born into the kingdom of heaven without 
first passing through the kingdom of hell. And 
in this way only, I think, will the kingdoms of 
this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and 
of his Christ. 

" Now, Jamie, having set the world right, — 
you and I, for which the world will be deeply 
grateful, — let us see what you are about, for 
you have been suspiciously still lately. What 
doing, Jamie ? " 

" Hay-puh ! " says Jamie, very red, eager, and 
absorbed, with no intermission of labor. 

" Making hasty pudding ! " O yes ! I know 
what that means. Only taking all the chips and 
shavings out of the wood-box in the closet and 
carrying them half across the room by the emi- 
nently safe conveyance of his two fat hands, and 
emptying them into my box of paper, and stirring 



278 SUMMER REST. 

all together with a curling-stick. That is nothing. 
'' Keep on, Jamie, and amuse yourself; but let us 
hear your geography lesson." 

" Where are you going one of these days ? " 

" Min-nee-so-toh." 

'' Where is Minnesota ? " 

Jamie gives a jerk with his arm to the west. 
He evidently thinks Minnesota is just beyond the 
hill. 

" Where is papa going to buy his horses ? " 

'' lU-noy." 

'' And where does Aunt Sarah live ? " 

" Cog-go." 

'' What river are you going to sail up to get to 
Minnesota ? " 

" Miss-iss-ipp-ee." 

" That 's a good little boy ! He knows ever 
so much ; and here is a peppermint. Open his 
mouth and shut his eyes, and pop ! it goes." 

There is, however, a pretty picture on the 
other side, that Jamie thrusts his iconoclastic fists 
through quite unconcernedly; and that is the 
dignity of human nature. The human being can 
be trained into a dignified person : that no one 
denies. Looking at some honored and honorable 
man bearing himself loftily through every crisis, 
and wearing his grandeur with an imperial grace, 
one may be pardoned for the mistake, but it is 
none the less a mistake, of reckoning the acquire- 
ment of an individual as the endowment of the 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 279 

race. Behold human nature unclothed upon with 
the arts and graces of the schools, if you would 
discover, not its possibilities, but its attributes. 
The helplessness of infancy appeals to all that is 
chivalric and Christian in our hearts ; but to 
dignity it is pre-eminently a stranger. A charm- 
ing and popular writer — on the whole, I am not 
sure that it was not my own self — once affirmed 
that a baby is a beast, and gave great offence 
thereby ; yet it seems to me that no unprejudiced 
person can observe an infant of tender weeks 
sprawling and squirming in the bath-tub, and 
not confess that it looks more like a little pink 
frog than anything else. And here is Jamie, not 
only weeks, but months and years old, setting his 
young affections on candy and dinner, and eating 
in general, with an appalling intensity. It is 
humiliating to see how easily he is moved by an 
appeal to his appetite. I blush for my race, re- 
membering the sparkle of his eyes over a dainty 
dish, and the intensity of his devotion to it, — 
the enthusiasm with which his feet spring, and 
his voice rings through the house, to announce 
the fact, '' Dinnah mo' weh-wy ! dinnah mo' weh- 
wy ! " To the naked eye, he appears to think 
as much of eating as a cat or a chicken Qr a dog. 
Reasons and rights he is slow to comprehend ; 
but his conscience is always open to conviction, 
and his will pliable to a higher law, when a stick 
of candy is in the case. His bread-and-butter 



280 SUMMER REST. 

is to him what science was to Newton ; and he 
has been known to reply abstractedly to a ques- 
tion put to him in the height of his enjoyment, 
" Don' talk t' me now ! " This is not dignity, 
surely. Is it total depravity ? What is it that 
makes his feet so swift to do mischief? He sweeps 
the floor with the table-brush, comes stumbling 
over the carpet almost chin-deep in a pair of 
muddy rubber boots, catches up the bird's seed- 
cup and darts away, spilling it at every step; and 
the louder I call, the faster he runs, half fright- 
ened, half roguish, till an unmistakable sharpness 
pierces him, makes him throw down cup and seed 
together, and fling himself full length on the floor, 
his little heart all broken. Indeed, he can bear 
anything but displeasure. He tumbles down 
twenty times a day, over the crickets, off* the 
chairs, under the table, head first, head last, bump, 
bump, bump, and never a tear sheds he, though 
his stern self-control is sometimes quite pitiful to 
see. But a little slap on his cheek, which is his 
standing punishment, — not a blow, but a tiny 
tap that must derive all its efficacy from its moral 
force, — oh, it stabs him to the heart ! He has 
no power to bear up against it, and goes away by 
himself, and cries, bitterly, sonorously, and towards 
the last, I suspect, rather ostentatiously. Then 
he spoils it all by coming out radiant, and boasting 
that he has " make tear," as if that were an 
unparalleled feat. If you attempt to chide him, 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 281 

he puts up his plump hand with a repelling ges- 
ture, turns away his head in disgust, and ejacu- 
lates vehemently, '' Don' talk t' me ! " After all. 
however, I do not perceive that he is any more 
sensitive to reproof than an intelligent and pet- 
ted dog. 

His logical faculty develops itself somewhat ca- 
priciously, but is very prompt. He seldom fails 
to give you a reason, though it is often of the 
Kilve weathercock type. 

" Don' talk t' me ! I little Min-nee-so-toh boy ! " 
— as if that were an amnesty proclamation. You 
invite him to stay with you, and let Papa go to 
Minnesota without him. He shakes his head 
dubiously, and protests, with solemn earnestness, 
" Mus' go Min-nee-so-toh ca'y my fork," which, to 
the world-incrusted mind, seems but an inadequate 
pretext. I want him to write me a letter when he 
is gone away ; but after a thoughtful pause, he de- 
cides that he cannot, '' 'cause I got no pen." If 
he is not in a mood to repeat the verse you ask for, 
he finds full excuse in the unblushing declaration, 
"I bashful." He casts shadows on the wall with 
his wreathing, awkward little fingers, and is per- 
fectly satisfied that they are rabbits, though the 
mature eye discerns no resemblance to any mem- 
ber of the vertebrate family. He gazes curiously 
to see me laugh at something I am reading, — 
"What 'at? my want to see," — and climbs up 
to survey the page with wistful eyes ; but it is " a' 



282 SUMMER REST. 

a muddle " to him. He greets me exultantly after 
absence, because I have "come home pay coot 
^with Jamie"; and there is another secret out: 
that it is of no use to be sentimental with a child. 
He loves you in proportion as you are available. 
His papa and mamma fondly imagine they are 
dearer to him than any one else, and it would be 
cruel to disturb that belief; but it would be the 
height of folly to count yourself amiable because 
Jamie plants himself firmly against the door, and 
pleads piteously, " Don' go in e parly wite ! " He 
wants you to "pay coot" with him, — that is all. 
If your breakfast shawl is lying on a chair, it 
would not be sagacious to attribute an affectionate 
unselfishness to him in begging leave to " go give 
Baddy shawl t' keep Baddy back warm." It is 
only his greediness to enter forbidden ground. 
Sentiment and sensibility have small lodgement in 
his soul. 

But when Jamie is duly forewarned, he is fore- 
armed. Legally admitted into the parlor to see 
visitors he sits on the sofa bv his mother's side, 
silent, upright, prim, his little legs stuck straight 
out before him in two stiff lines, presenting a full 
front view of his soles. By the way, I wonder 
how long grown persons would sit still, if they 
were obliged to assume this position. But Jamie 
maintains himself heroically, his active soul sub- 
dued to silence, till Nature avenges herself, not 
merely with a palpable, but a portentous yawn. 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 283 

" You may force me to this unnatural quiet," she 
seems to say ; " but if you expect to prevent me 
from testifying that I think it intolerably stupid, 
you have reckoned without your host." 

And here Jamie comes out strongly in favor of 
democracy, universal suffrage, political equality, the 
Union and the Constitution, the Declaration of 
Independence, and the rights of man. Uncontami- 
nated by conventional rules, he recognizes the hu- 
man being apart from worldly state. He is as si- 
lent and abashed in the presence of the day-laborer, 
coarsely clad and rough of speech and manners as 
in that of the accomplished man of the world, or 
the daintiest silken-robed lady. With simple grav- 
ity, and never a thought of wrong, he begs the 
poet, " Pease, Missa Poet, tie up my shoe." He 
stands in awe before the dignity of the human 
soul ; but dress, and rank, and reputation receive 
no homage from him. He is reverent, but not to 
false gods. The world finds room for kingdoms 
and empires and oligarchies ; but undoubtedly man 
is born a democrat. 

Is there only one Jamie here ? Can one little 
urchin about as high as the table so fill a house 
with mirth and mischief, so daguerreotype himself 
in every corner, possess, while claiming nothing, 
so laro-e a share of the household interest ? For 
he somehow bubbles up everywhere. Not a mis- 
chance or a misplacement but can pretty surely be 
brought home to him. Is a glass broken ? Jamie 



284 SUMMER REST. 

broke it. Is a door open that ought to be shut ? 
Jamie opened it. Or shut that ought to be open ? 
Jamie shut it. Is there a mighty crash in the en- 
try? It is Jamie dropping the crowbar through 
the side-lights. The " Atlantic " has been missing 
all the morning. 

" Jamie," — a last, random resort, after fruitless 
search, — " where is the ' Atlantic Monthly ' ? " 

" In daw." 

" In the drawer ? No, it is not in the drawer. 
You don't know anything about it." 

Not quite so fast. Jamie knows the " Atlantic 
Monthly" as well as you; and if you will open 
the drawer for him, he will rapidly scatter its con- 
tents till he comes to the missing '' Monthly," safe 
under the shawls where he deposited it. 

If you are hanging your room with ground-pine, 
he lays hold of every stray twig, and tucks it into 
every crack he can reach. Will you have some 
corn out of the barrel? It is Jamie for balancing 
himself on the edge, and reaching down into the 
depths after it, till little more than his heels are 
visible. If in a sudden exuberance, you make a 
''cheese," — not culinary, but whirligig^ — round 
go his little bobtail petticoats in fatuous imitation. 
You walk the floor awhile, lost in day dream- 
ing, to find this little monkey trotting behind 
you with droll gravity, his hands clasped behind 
his head like yours ; and he breaks in upon your 
most serious meditations with, " Baddy get down 



KING JAMES THE FIRST, 285 

on floor, want wide on Baddy back," as coolly as 

if he were asking you to pass the salt. All that 

he says, all that he does, has its peculiar charm. 

Not that he is in the least a remarkable child. 

" I trust we have within our realme 
Five (thousand) as good as hee." 

Otherwise what will befall this sketch ? 

I do not expect anything will ever come of him. 
In a few years he will be just like everybody else ; 
but now he is the peculiar gift of Heaven. Men 
and women walk and talk all day long, and nobody 
minds them ; while this little ignoramus seldom 
opens his lips but you think nothing was ever so 
w^insomely spoken. I suspect it is only his com- 
plete simplicity and sincerity. What he says and 
what he does are the direct, unmistakable effusions 
of his nature. All comes straight from the secret 
place where his soul abideth. Even his subter- 
fuges are open as the day. You know you are 
looking upon virgin nature. Just as it flashed 
from its source, you see the unadulterated spirit. 
If grown-up persons would or could be as frank 
as he, — if they had no more misgivings, conceal- 
ments, self-distrust, self-thought than he, — they 
would doubtless be as interesting. Every separate 
human being is a separate phenomenon and mys- 
tery ; and if he could only be unthinkingly himself, 
as Jamie is, that self would be as much more cap- 
tivating as it is become great and fine by growth 
and experience. But we — fashion, habit, society, 



286 SUMMER REST. 

training, all the culture of life, mix a sort of paste, 
and we gradually become coated with it, and it 
hardens upon us ; so it comes to pass, by and by, 
that we see our associates no longer, but only the 
casing in which they walk about ; and as one is a 
good deal like another, we are not deeply fasci- 
nated. Sometimes a Thor's hammer breaks this 
flinty rock in pieces. Sometimes a fervid sun melts 
it, and you are let in to where the vigilant soul 
keeps watch and ward. Sometimes, alas ! the hard- 
ening process seems to have struck in, and you find 
nothing but. petrifaction all the way through. 

Perhaps, after all, it is just as well ; for, if our 
neighbors won upon us unawares as Jamie does, 
when should we ever find time to do anything? 
On the whole, it is a great deal better as it is, until 
the world has learned to love its neighbor as itself. 
For the present, it would not be safe to go abroad 
with the soul exposed. You fetch me a blow with 
your bludgeon, and I mind it not at all through 
my coat of mail ; but if it had fallen on my heart, it 
would have wounded me to death. Nay, if you 
did but know where the sutures are, how you 
would stab and stab, dear fellow-man and brother, 
not to say Christian ! No, we are not to be trusted 
with each other yet, — I with you, nor you with 
me ; so we will keep our armor on awhile, please 
Heaven. 

And as I think of Jamie frisking through the 
happy, merry days, I see how sad, unnatural, and 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 287 

wicked a thing it is, that mothers must so often 
miss the sunshine that ought to come to them 
through their httle ones. We speak of losing 
children, when they die ; but many a mother loses 
her children, though they play upon her threshold 
every day. She loses them, because she has no 
leisure to loiter, and live in them. She is so occu- 
pied in providing for their wants, that she has no 
time to sun herself in their grace. She snatches 
from them sweetness enough to keep herself alive, 
but she does not ripen in their warmth for all the 
world. And the hours go by, and the days go by, 
evening and morning, seed-time and harvest, and 
the little frocks are outgrown, and the little socks 
outworn, and the little baby — O, there is no little 
baby any more, but a boy with the crust formed 
already on his soul. 

I marvel what becomes of these small people in 
heaven. They cannot stay as they are, for then 
heaven would be a poorer place than earth, where 
all but idiots increase in wisdom and stature. And 
if they keep growing, — why, it seems but a sorry 
exchange, to give up your tender, tiny, clinging 
infant, that is still almost a part of your own life, 
and receive in return a full-grown angel a great 
deal wiser and stronger than you. Perhaps it is 
only a just punishment for our guilty ignorance 
and selfishness in treating the little things so 
harshly, that they die away from us in sheer self- 
defence. And how good is the All-Father thus to 



288 SUMMER REST. 

declare for His little ones, when the strife waxes 
too hot, and the odds too heavy against them ! 
We can maltreat them, but only to a certain limit. 
Beyond that, the lovely, stern angel of Death steps 
in, and bears them softly away to perpetual peace. 
I read our vital statistics, — so many thousands 
under five years of age dying each year ; and I 
rejoice in every one. If their chances were fair 
for purity and happiness, the earth i^ too beautiful 
to slip so quickly from their hold ; but with sin and 
suffering, twin beasts of prey, lying in wait to de- 
vour, oh ! thrice and four times happy they who 
escape swiftly from the struggle in which they are 
all too sure to fail. So many, at least, are safe 
within the fold. 

And thus, too, it seems providential, that the sin 
of pagan nations should take the form of infanti- 
cide. It is Satanic work, but God overrules it for 
good. Evil defeats itself, and hatred crowds the 
list of love. From stifled cities, overfull, from 
heathen lands, steeped centuries long in vice and 
crime, from East and West and North and South, 
over all the world, the innocent souls go up, — 
little lily-buds, springing white and pure from 
earthly slime to bloom in heavenly splendor. 

Jamie, Jamie, do you see birdie has put his head 
under his wing and gone to sleep ? What does that 
mean ? It means " Good night, Jamie." Now 
come, let us have " Cr-e-e-p, cr-e-e-p, cr-e-e-p ! " 
And two fingers go slowly, measuring Jamie from 



KING JAMES THE FIRST, 289 

toe to neck, and Jamie cringes and squirms and 
finally screams outright, and almost flings himself 
upon the floor ; but, as soon as his spasm is over, 
begs again, ''Say, ' K-e-e-p, k-e-e-p, k-e-e-p!'" 
and would keep it going longer than I have time 
to wait. 

In this very passion for reiteration may be found 
a sufficient answer to those uneasy persons who 
are perpetually attempting to bring new singing- 
books into our churches, on pretext that people 
are tired of the old tunes. You never hear from 
Jamie's pure taste any clamor for new songs or 
stories. Whenever he climbs up to your lap to be 
amused he is sure to ask for the story of '' Kitty in 
Ga'et Window," though he knows it as Boston 
people know oratorio music, and detects and con- 
demns the slightest departure from the text. And 
when you have gone through the drama, with all 
its motions and mewings, he wants nothing so much 
as '' Kitty in Ga'et Window 'gen." Let us keep 
the old tunes. It is but a factitious need that 
would change them. 

Gentle and friendly reader, I pray your pardon 
for this childish record. Some things I say of set 
purpose for your good, and the more you do not 
like them, the more I know they are the very 
things you need ; and I shall continue to deal them 
out to you from time to time, as you are able to 
bear them. But this broken, rambling child-talk — 
with " a few practical reflections, arising naturally 
13 s 



290 SUMMER REST, 

from my subject," as the preachers say — was 
penned only for your pleasure — and mine ; and 
if you do not like it, I shall be very sorry, and 
wish I had never written it. For we might have 
gone away by ourselves and enjoyed it all alone ; 
could we not, Jamie, you and I together ? 
no, no ! Never again ! Never, never again ! for 
the mountains that rise and the prairies that roll 
between us. Ah well, Jamie, I shall not cry 
about it. If you had stayed here, it would have 
been but a little while before you w^ould have 
grown up into a big boy, and then a young fellow, 
and then a man, and been of no account. So 
"what does it signify ? Good night, little Jamie ! 
good night, darling ! Do I hear a sleepy echo, as of 
old, wavering out of the West, " Goo-i'dah-ing'^^ ? 

H. I suppose that " gentle and friendly reader " 
does not mean me. I am saluted with bayonet 
and blunderbuss rather than such sweet supplica- 
tory phrase. 

L Yes, I am obliged to carry matters with a high 
hand towards you. But is not this nice? You 
have enjoyed it I know. Do not deny it. On the 
whole, what do you think of me as a historian ? 

H, Ah ! — well, yes, I have enjoyed it so far 
as general character is concerned. I think it 
quite the best piece of style I have ever seen 
from you. 

L Charming ! Only there is no style about it. 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 291 

H, But you — 

L O, now do not go and spoil it all. It is so 
seldom you pay me a compliment, do let me have 
the good of it for once. 

H. I can't tell a lie, Pa, you know I can't tell 
a lie. 

L Don't tell a lie, then ; just stop where you 
are. 

H, O w^ell. Anything to please j^ou. What 
have you done with my book ? ^ 

L What were you going to say if I had not 
hindered you ? 

H. I was going to say my name is Norval on 
the Grampian hills ! 

I. Nonsense ! Tell me. 

JET. Well, then, it strikes me you have, as usual, 
lugged in some theology — 

L No, I have not lugged in anything, — the- 
ology or physiology. Everything that is there 
came of its own accord. I tell you theology is in 
everything, and you cannot keep it out. 

H, At any rate it is there, and you are responsi- 
ble for it, however it got there. You intimate that 
the theory of the Doctors of Divinity and the 
statements of the Bible in regard to human de- 
pravity are not sustained by the facts in Jamie's 
case ; yet he is expressly not exceptional, only that 
he is well and well-conditioned. But in the popu- 
lar estimate, to reject human depravity is to reject 
Orthodoxy. 



292 SUMMER REST, 

I. But I — 

H. Wait a minute, I am not quite through. 
And to reject Orthodoxy is to range on the side of 
Rationahsm against EvangeKcal rehgion — 

/. Let me just ask you one question. Are you 
speaking your own thoughts or making believe for 
some imaginary objector ? 

jET. Truth is truth. Never mind sources. For 
your argument, is it not something of a broken 
reed? You might pick up the cub of a grizzly 
bear of the same relative age v^ith Jamie and hold 
forth over it : " Laying aside the revelations of the 
Natural History books, and of the professors of 
that science, I should say that its nature is honest, 
simple, healthful, pure, and good. It is affection- 
ate, clumsy, playful, and lives wholly on milk. It 
shows no carnivorous propensity, no inclination to 
prefer blood and bones to mush and molasses. It 
just lives on its fun-loving, playful yet earnest life 
from day to day, a pure and perfect example to my 
eye of what God meant a kitten or a lamb to be. 
I cannot see how it could be very different from 
what it is, if it were intended to be a poodle-dog 
in heaven. In spite of all theories and probabili- 
ties, here is this little grizzly under my own eye 
developing a far stronger tendency to love, kind- 
ness, sympathy, and all the innocent and benevo- 
lent qualities than to their opposites." And yet I 
fancy I see you trusting yourself within reach of 
the paws and jaws of grizzly when he has had time 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 293 

to become a little more " developed " in this na- 
ture whose youngness is so cunningly safe and 
piquantly good. 

The flaw is, that you have left out of your argu- 
ment the great influence which infancy has in 
masking character. Almost any ill beast is pleas- 
ant in its immaturity. I have seen little pigs than 
whom I could scarce conceive of " cunninger " 
pets, yet all the while on their swift, unswerving 
way to unmitigated hog-hood. Here endeth the 
first lesson. * 

/. You have finished your sermon ? 

H. For the present. 

I. I think it is as poor a sermon as ever I 
heard. 

H, Free your mind, brother, as they say in 
class-meeting. 

/. It is very good, in fact it is quite pictu- 
resque in point of style, but for substance of doc- 
trine it is just nothing at all. I can demolish it so 
easily that I really do not know where to begin. 

H, O, pitch right in anywhere. 

J. No, I shall go to work systematically. You say 
that I say that the doctrine of total depravity is 
not sustained by the facts in Jamie's case. I do 
not say that exactly, but rather by the appearance 
of Jamie's case ; by what seem to me to be the 
facts. But never mind that. Does the doctrine 
of depravity depend upon the development of a 
two-year-old boy ? I simply affirm, leaving out the 



294 SUMMER REST. 

Bible, you would judge so and so. But do I leave 
out the Bible ? Is not that what the Bible is for, 
— to help us in making up judgment? And do I 
object to using it for that purpose ? If I should des- 
cant upon your cub, " Leaving out the revelations 
of the Natural History books, and of the professors 
of that science, I should say that it has a simple, 
playful, kindly nature," would you immediately cry 
out, " O, now you are going over to the lamb- 
and-kitten theory of bears ! " or would you answer 
quietly, '^ That is true as far as it goes ; but in finally 
making up your mind you must not leave out their 
revelations, nor the revelations which your own 
eyes will make, when your cub has become a full- 
grown bear. All who have made a study of Bru- 
in's life from infancy to old age, agree that a bear 
is a bear by nature and not by education " ? I de- 
clare expressly, that I am not able to account for 
the abounding wickedness in the world, except on 
the theory of innate depravity ; but, on the other 
side, I am equally certain that I recognize no marks 
of depravity in Jamie. His infancy has completely 
masked it from me. And I am talking about what 
I see, not what you assure me is there. 

H, But directly afterwards you begin to modify 
the creed, and reduce depravity to disease, thereby 
virtually abolishing it. 

/. Abolishing a great deal of it to be sure, but 
not the whole. What I maintain is, that the evi- 
dence is not all in until healthy human nature has 
had a chance to testify. 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 295 

H, But you are ready to deny that to be human 
nature which is diseased. Yet morally it has be- 
come so by sin, and you must take it as it has 
become since the fall. 

/. I do take it, fall and all. By disease I do 
not mean any mysterious kink caused by Adam, 
but such moral and physical disease as we see 
contracting around us all the time. I mean, for 
instance, that parents neglect their children's teeth, 
and so the children have toothache, and toothache 
makes them cross. Parents suffer their children 
to eat improper food in an improper manner, and 
so impair their digestion, and this again makes 
them fretful and unhappy. They permit them 
to sit up too late, to go out evenings while they 
are still children, — and when a child ought to be 
in bed, it does not matter much whether it is a 
children's ball or a Sunday-school concert that 
keeps him out of it, — and so the nervous system 
is injured. They do not enforce prompt and per- 
fect obedience, and the character is permanently 
weakened. They thwart unnecessarily or scold 
capriciously and the temper is soured. Now I 
say, this is our own fault, and nobody else's. A 
mother can send her child to bed at seven o'clock 
just as regularly as if no apple ever grew, and 
to turn all the wrong off upon Adam, and call it 
human nature arid original sin, is a great piece of 
injustice. 

H. O yes, it is original sin — with all who 
commit it. 



296 SUMMER REST. 

L You never lapse from logic into puns, till 
you have exhausted every other resource. 

H, Possibly the very weakness which cannot 
command obedience, and the ignorance which does 
not see its necessity, may be owing to the fall, if 
you trace it back far enough. 

L Whatever it is owing to, away with it as 
fast as possible. Rend off all the wickedness that 
comes from palpable mismanagement, and let us 
see what manner of being we have on our hands. 
I, for one, have not the least apprehension that 
it will be a creature too bright or good for human 
nature's daily food, or that there will not be sin- 
fulness enough left for faith to fasten on. But 
some of you people seem to stickle for depravity, 
as if it were a precious legacy, and you feared 
lest an avaricious world should seek to rob you 
of some part or lot in it. You make an idol of it, 
and guard it against profane approach. You cry 
out, with the old lady, " When you have taken 
away my total depravity, you have taken away 
my rehgion." 

H, Very tart and smart, my dear; but as an 
argument, to borrow the phraseology of our " way- 
ward sisters," not worth shucks. 

L No, but at least you need not be so anxious, 
lest humanity should not be painted in colors 
dark enough. Why, your own cubs here turn 
and rend you. They grow up into ravenous bears, 
not because they are neglected and mismanaged, 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 297 

but because their nature is ravenous. The most 
healthy and the best-bred cub is savage and blood- 
thirsty. But a child healthy and properly trained 
is expected to become a well-behaved man. If he 
proves anything else, we call it strange, inexplica- 
ble. Therefore it seems his bent to badness is a 
different thing from a bear's bent to blood. 

S^, Of course the human being is more suscepti- 
ble to training than any other. 

I. And that fact ought to be brought out more 
fully. Whatever theory we hold as to how we 
came to be so weak and wicked, or even to what 
degree we are weak and wicked, the vital thing is 
to make the most of Christ's help in becoming 
strong and good. This we scarcely begin to do. 
We scarcely know there is such a thing to be done. 
We talk about our strength being in the Lord, but 
we let it be there. We do not lay hold of it and 
use it economically. We have inexhaustible treas- 
ures laid up in Christ, but we rarely draw upon 
them. Where do we look chiefly for accessions to 
the Church ? Why, to revivals. 

H, Where would you have us look ? 

I. To the children of the Church for the steady 
supply. Public opinion should be so formed that 
the Christianization of children shall be considered 
as much the duty of parents as the clothing of 
children. Children shall grow up into Christianity 
just as they grow up into manhood and woman- 
hood. Their spiritual strength shall go hand in 

13* 



298 SUMMER REST, 

hand with their moral and intellectual strength. 
They shall become members of the Church as reg- 
ularly as they become citizens of the State. It 
should be as unnatural and uncommon for the 
children of Christian parents to grow up not 
Christians, as it is for the child of honest parents 
to grow up a thief, — something to be remarked 
upon and looked into. It is intolerable the way 
w^e have of considering wrong as right. If a 
boy of sixteen becomes a Christian during a re- 
vival we call it early conversion, an answer to 
the prayers of faith, and give glory to God, and 
are abundantly satisfied. But in truth it is late 
conversion, and only just better than no conver- 
sion at all. As if one could go on sixteen years 
in sin with impunity, if at the end of them he re- 
pents of his sin ! The sixteen formative years, the 
very years that make the man, are reckoned of 
small account. I think that is one reason why 
Christian character is so defective ; it is because 
the Christian principle comes in so late. A man 
after years of wrong-doing, wrong-thinking, wrong- 
feeling, may become a sincere Christian, but his 
bad habits are so strong that he can hardly break 
them off. He has been so long in the clutch of 
sin that he cannot wrench himself free. His 
selfishness has become a sort of mould, his soul 
has been fashioned in it; and though he would 
now break the mould, it is only with the utmost 
difficulty, and after years of patient struggle, that 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 299 

this distorted shape will be changed into the image 
of Christ. And this struggle he is too weak to 
make with vigor; often he is so thoroughly de- 
bauched by sin that he does not perceive the 
necessity of making it. So the religion of Christ 
is constantly falsified by his shortcomings. 

H, But he does break off his habits. If he 
does not see the need of making eflfort to become 
better, he was never truly a Christian. You make 
no account of grace. Paul says he can do all 
things through Christ strengthening him. 

J. So can any of us, but we do not. What is 
the use of talking ? You know perfectly well that 
people's bad habits cling to them long after they 
have become Christians. You have seen self- 
willed, prejudiced, domineering, miserly, gossiping 
church-members enough to know that. I am not 
accusing them, but excusing them. I suppose 
them to have gone on gossiping and domineering 
so long that they do not know they do gossip and 
domineer. Grace does not make a man reform 
in those respects in which he deems himself right 
already. 

H, But it does often open his eyes to see the 
wrong in that which he thought right. And if 
such a man is to be changed at all, so much the 
more there must be a revival to change him. His 
childhood lacked the forming hand. The ordinary 
ways of God have failed to move him. It needs 
the extraordinary, the sympathy and excitement 



300 SUMMER REST. 

of a revival. He may never be so symmetrical a 
man as if he had served the Lord from his birth ; 
but he will be a better man than if no revival had 
touched him. As things are, I do not see how 
we can get on without revivals. 

I, As things are, but things ought to be dif- 
ferent. I do not object to revivals as an adjunct, 
as a sort of aggressive movement upon the world ; 
but we content ourselves with them, we count 
upon revivals to do our work for us. We have 
a long period of indifference, then an excitement, 
numerous meetings, a good deal of religious emo- 
tion, some awakening of religious principle ; much 
hasty, ill-considered, unintelligent action, some 
real benefit. Perhaps a revival is better than 
indifference. Sometimes a rehgious life is begun 
w^hich brightens on into the perfect day. Some- 
times a man is lifted out of the mire of gross sins 
into clean and fair habitations, and sometimes self- 
ishness gets itself baptized in the name of Jesus 
of Nazareth, and goes its way as complacently 
as if it had been changed into love. 

H, But I think a revival generally leaves those 
who have been brought under its influence a little 
better than they were before. 

L But I do not see that a community living 
midway between a second and third revival is 
on a higher plane than when it was midway 
between a first and second revival. Good and 
shrewd Mrs. Blank was saying the other day 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 301 

how much revivals were needed. I answered, 
"Yes, I wish we could have revivals, — such as 
would keep us church-members from telling lies, ' 
and breaking promises, and enjoying our neigh- 
bors' troubles, and not paying our debts." " Nev- 
er," said she emphatically, — " never will you live 
to see that day." 

S, Very likely, but there is one comfort ; we 
are not quite so bad as the early Christians. They 
must have been a hard set, those Gauls and Co- 
rinthians, judging from the way Paul took them 
to task. 

I. I wonder he was not wholly discouraged. 

H. So, though you cannot see improvement 
from year to year, you can see it in eighteen 
hundred years. And eighteen hundred years is 
not much in the world's history. 

L But I really think if we cannot put reviv- 
als more into the background it would be better 
not to have them at all. If we are going to spend 
all our force on them, call them the harvesting 
of the crop, w^e shall have the work to do over 
again from generation to generation, and shall 
never get on. But let Christian parents be taught 
that they are responsible for their children ; that 
they are not simply to pray for the child's salva- 
tion, but to work it out ; that the formation of his 
Christian character is not only their duty, as much 
as the establishment of his pliysical health, but is 
equally within their power; that every child who 



302 SUMMER REST. 

grows up unconverted is a living monument of 
parental ignorance, or unfaithfulness ; and then — 

H, The first twenty times I heard you say this 
I thought it was all right, the second, I kept 
silence, but now that you have begun on the 
third score, I begin to think I don't believe it. 
I admit that the parent's powder over the child 
is great, but I question whether it is supreme. 
Where is your authority ? 

L In the Bible, in nature, and in the char- 
acter of God. The Old Testament — 

H, Heavens ! Have I upset another basket 
of theology on my poor head? 

I. No, only a thimbleful if you keep quiet. 
The Old Testament recognizes absolute power 
of the father over children. The Lord said, I 
know Abraham, that he will command his chil- 
dren and his household after him, and they shall 
keep the way of the Lord. The New Testament 
promises everything to the prayer of faith. By 
expecting good parents to have good children, 
by being surprised when the child of bad par- 
ents turns out well, we confess the la\v of nature. 
And knowing the goodness of God, can we believe 
that he would give to human beings the power 
of evoking a soul without also giving them the 
power of saving it alive ? 

H, Yet you see the children of the most careful 
and prayerful parents going wrong. 

L Not without seeing also a sufficient predis- 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 303 

posing cause, — that is, where there has been op- 
portunity to see the process ; and this in so many 
cases, that where I see only the disastrous result 
I infer that there has been a cause. From my 
observation I judge that cause and effect are just 
as closely connected in families as in farms. Wise 
culture in both brings good harvests. We no 
more gather grapes of thorns or grow thistles on 
fig-trees in the one case than in the other. 

IL But the trouble is in knowing what wise 
culture is. One Isabella grape-vine is just like 
another Isabella grape-vine ; but of five children 
in one family, no two will be alike. Every one 
needs a different management from every other. 
The young parents strive conscientiously and un- 
weariedly to do their best, but the result is any- 
thing but happy. Perhaps you can see where 
they make a mistake, but they do not see it. Per- 
haps in their place you would do no better, 
perhaps far worse. What are you going to do 
about it? 

L I am going to be confident that the great 
God who formed both parent and child is more 
considerate than you or I, and will make every 
allowance when he makes the final decision. But 
I really do not see how it is possible to make a 
fatal mistake, when the Apostle James says in 
so many words, " If any among you lack wisdom, 
let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally 
and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." 



304 SUMMER REST. 

Why not take God at his word? Do the very 
best you can, and demand of God wisdom, accord- 
ing to his promise. Do as Manoah did, entreat 
the Lord to ''teach us what we shall do unto 
the child that shall be born." " How shall we 
order the child, and how shall we do unto him ?" 

H, Yet '' the child" turned out to be anything 
but an exemplary man. 

L I know he was no better than he should 
be. Perhaps they did not follow it up. At any 
rate, the child grew and the Lord blessed him, and 
he became a great man. From the answer which 
was given to Manoah's prayer, I should not infer 
that his parents were thinking about his moral 
character when they asked guidance. However, 
there is the promise. I am not responsible for it. 
If it is not kept, you must settle the matter with 
the Apostle James, not with me. And really if it 
were so, that God would give a child to parents, 
and would not grant with him, to their earnest 
prayers and best endeavor, power to train him so 
as to insure his salvation, I could not say that God 
was good. Your child is nothing to be thankful 
for, if he may be lost in spite of you, 

H. It is a remarkable fact, however, that the 
children are pretty well along in the world before 
their fathers and mothers have reflected very 
deeply upon its evils. The light-hearted young 
people are loving and housekeeping and baby-tend- 
ing without much abstract thinking. Great moral 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 305 

duties and dangers occupy very little of their at- 
tention. Knowledge comes late, and wisdom lin- 
gers, but the little souls are on time. If you could 
make some arrangement by which the " idols in 
white frocks " should be given into the keeping of 
sensible, experienced, reflecting persons of a philo- 
sophical turn of mind, instead of silly young things 
who know nothing of life, perhaps you might ac- 
complish something. 

L That remark is not nearly so sarcastic as you 
meant it to be, because it has not that basis of truth 
without which even caricature has no point. The 
great need is, not to have people know the right, 
but to do it. It was sin that first offered us the 
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and 
evil, and as far as we can put away sin we can 
put away that fruit. If boys and girls are brought 
up to do right as boys and girls, when they come 
to be parents they will naturally and easily do 
right as parents. Love is powerful as a corrective, 
but it is all-sufficient as a stimulus. The happy, 
charming young girl may have had little respon- 
sibility or experience; but if her principles are 
right, her feelings true, with the infant soul come 
the love and wisdom necessary for its sustenance. 
It is only because we have so sunk into wrong, so 
forgotten God, that there needs so much preach- 
ing. The highest health is unconscious. Per- 
haps after a few generations of effort we shall get 
into that happy state that we shall never think of 



306 SUMMER REST. 

these tilings at all. The idea of parental respon- 
sibility will be so thoroughly inwrought into social 
life, that one shall no more dream of inculcating it 
than of exhorting parents to love their children. 
S. Somebody's occupation wall be gone then. 

"Fly swiftly round, ye wheels of time." 

I. And then I shall look upon revivals with less 
misgiving. I shall not feel that a spasmodic in- 
terest is taking the place of that steady interest 
without which the world can never be brought 
under the dominion of Christ ; without w^hich we 
may overrun, but can never redeem it. 

5". After all, I suspect that half a loaf is better 
than no bread. 

I. Not if the half-loaf is going to content you, 
and so keep you from vigorous endeavor to earn a 
steady and plentiful subsistence. 

JET. It is vigorous endeavor that some people 
find the most fault with in connection with revi- 
vals. The use of machinery is preferred against 
us as a charge by our opponents and as promptly 
repelled by ourselves. 

I. That is not the kind of endeavor I w^as think- 
ing of. But it is a very good kind, if it supple- 
ments and does not supersede the daily, constant 
endeavor to make one's own character and habits 
good, and to bring up one's own children right. 

S. Certainly. My sole objection is, that we do 
not employ enough of it. So far from condemning 



KING JAMES THE FIRST. 807 

machinery, I condemn only the neglect and the 
abuse of it. The Spirit of God will not reform 
the world without the intervention of men. Spir- 
itual harvests can no more be reaped without 
machinery than agricultural harvests. Doubtless 
unwise means are often used to promote revivals ; 
I know that there are not unfrequently imperti- 
nence and intermeddling. But these infelicities 
are entirely local. They do not inhere in the use 
of means. They do not indicate that we are to sit 
with folded hands and expect God to do all the 
work. If union meetings, or readoption of creeds, 
or renewing of covenants, or a united celebration 
of the Lord's Supper, is deemed useful in kin- 
dling the zeal and strengthening the love of Chris- 
tians, and so inciting them to fresh efforts in re- 
deeming the world, then they are not only right in 
taking these measures, but they would be wrong 
not to take them. And to attempt to stigmatize 
such modes as " artificial," and to denounce such 
movements as machinery, and to depreciate such 
a revival as " deliberately excited," is very ques- 
tionable in point both of philosophy and courtesy. 
Revivals ought to be deliberately excited. Poor 
and shallow and meagre as they are, their faults 
lie in another quarter than such complaints point 
to. The Holy Ghost does not need counsel and 
direction, but Father, Son, and Holy Ghost bless 
us with fulness of blessing according as we adopt 
wise counsels and w^alk in the right direction. Wo 



308 SUMMER REST. 

might just as reasonably scorn machinery in poli- 
tics or in social science as in religion. 

I, I agree with you entirely, though I think the 
excessive multiplication of meetings is unwise, and 
tends to increase what is harmful in revivals ; 
and do you not consider, too, the insinuation that 
clergymen have special ends to answer in " getting 
up revivals " very unjust and in very bad taste? 
It seems to me that I know everything bad there 
is in revivals, but I never saw this. 

H. The insinuation is far more injurious to the 
persons who make it than to the persons of whom 
it is made. There is no question that ministers 
have their littlenesses ; but if absolute purity of 
motive may be predicated of any man in this 
world it may be predicated of the educated, 
quiet, well-bred Christian clergyman who is work- 
ing and praying for a revival of religion in his 
church and congregation. If a disinterested de- 
sire for the highest good of his fellows actuates 
any man, it actuates this man. And even in the 
few cases where learning and quiet and good 
breeding are not obvious, where the modus ope- 
randi savors of intermeddling, and want of tact 
does more harm than zeal does good, the fault is 
not of motive, but of manner, not of ends, but 
means. But there, luckily for me, is the sun 
coming out, and out I am going. Any farm 
drudgery will seem play to me now. 

L 0, but the grass is yet wet. The plantation 



KINO JAMES THE FIRST. 309 

is all turned into water-courses, and I wanted to 
say — 

H, Plantation! 

I. Yes, plantation. Why not? What is a plan- 
tation, pray? 

H, I can tell you what it is not, — a plot of land 
where you do your carting with a tin pan, your 
planting with a teacup, and your haying with a 
pair of scissors. 

There was a stratum of fact underneath this 
statement, so I let the case go by default. 




WELL DONE. 




T is very often urged against Ameri- 
can writers, that their productions are 
ephemeral, that they write for the times, 
not for eternity. It may be proper, 
therefore, to state distinctly at the outset, that the 
present paper is prepared exclusively for eternity. 
No contemporary need apply. When the existing 
order of things shall have passed away, when the 
New Zealand traveller shall have finished his 
sketch of the ruins of St. Paul, laid aside his port- 
folio, and drawn from his haversack his simple re- 
past of doughnuts and cheese, then is my time ! 
His eye. wandering dreamily hither and thither, 
will light perchance upon a bit of paper fluttering 
from beneath a stone. Eagerly exhuming it, he 
will discover it to be a stray copy of this book, pre- 
served in the desert sands from the tooth of time 
for many thousand years : and on his return to 
New Zealand, he will have it laid carefully in the 
Museum beneath a glass case, while several copies 
of this paper will be printed for the use of the New 



SUMMER REST. 311 

Zealand Historical and Genealogical Society by 
reason of the flood of light it throws upon the man- 
ners, customs, and rural life of a people once brave, 
humane, and in a degree civilized, but now, alas ! 
utterly extinct. I quote from the New Zealand 
Evening Gazette. 

On one of the first cold mornings in the winter 
of 18 — , there might have been seen a young man 
of some seventy or eighty summers — I need not 
remind the thoughtful reader that it was myself — 
with his head bowed, one eye securely shut, the 
other determinedly open, gazing steadfastly into a 
pump. It was indeed an occasion that called for the 
utmost concentration of purpose, for the kitchen 
fire was waiting, and the pump-handle refused to 
move. After mature deliberation, which none 
better than this young man knew how to compass, 
he came to the conclusion that the pump was fro- 
zen up. A wedge of ice through its centre reach- 
ing nearly to the top confirmed him in this con- 
clusion. The first thing to be done was to di3lodge 
the intruder. To effect this, he possessed himself 
of the parlor poker, and attempted to chip away 
the ice. It was a brilliant device, and would have 
succeeded perfectly had there been time enough 
to carry on the experiment ; but after ten minutes 
of assiduous toil, a close mathematical calculation 
enabled him to judge, that at the present rate of 
progress, he would reach the bottom of the wedge 
^n the fifteenth of July ensuing, by which time 



312 WELL DONE. 

there was every reason to fear the kitchen fire 
would have gone out. Some swifter remedy must 
be applied. He had recourse to the tea-kettle ; but 
the scalding w^ater, while showing every disposition 
to settle on its lees and become ice, showed no 
disposition whatever to induce the ice to go into 
liquidation. As a last resort, a crow-bar was 
heated seven times hot, thrust into the pump, and 
pressed firmly down. A great commotion ensued. 
A fierce volume of steam ascended to the skies. 
A furious hissing attested the violence of the ele- 
mental war within. But the fiery iron kept on its 
sizzling course, and suddenly with a great gulp it 
lost its lightness, it became a heavy weight, and 
the pump was thawed out. 

To prevent a recurrence of the trouble, the 
pump-handle was carefully tilted up o' nights, the 
pump steadfastly swathed in old quilts, and a dose 
of salts administered before the cold evenings set 
in, but every cold morning showed that all effort 
was vain. The pump-handle rested on its re- 
served rights and refused to budge. If it had been 
left up, up it froze, or if down, down. Every 
valve was stiff*. True, the work of thaw^ing out 
was not without a pleasing excitement. It was 
like w^atching a fairy scene to see the cold, dull 
iron changing in the glowing coals to liquid, 
scarlet fire, no longer of the earth earthy, but a 
child of the skies, sparkling and spiritual. It was 
like an adventure of knighthood to bear it speedilj§ 



SUMMER REST. 313 

yet daintily over the twenty rods of icy path with- 
out slipping or scorching, and then came the inner 
rage as of some volcanic battle underground, and 
the tightening clasp of freezing, senseless fingers 
when the ice foundations promised to give way 
and there was danger lest the burning bar should 
fall down the pump and set the well on fire. Still 
every ingenuous mind must see, that it will not 
do to suffer a crow-bar to usurp so large a place in 
the household economy, and, with the great Jew- 
ish lawgiver, the unhappy young man often asked 
his affectionate but thirsty family, " Must I fetch 
you water out of this rock — of ice?" So the 
problem of the hour became a question of hy- 
draulics. Solomon says the beginning of strife is 
as when one letteth out water. But Solomon, 
with all his wisdom, lived in an unenlightened age 
and died young. Had he been a denizen of our 
happy country, had he pitched his tent on our 
knoll, and shared the secrets of our housekeeping, 
our, meaning the young man before referred to, 
his heirs and ancestors forever, he would have 
oflFered an amendment to the previous resolution, 
namely, the beginning of strife is when one letteth 
on water. For with that attempt came all our 
woe. The point was to have easy access to water. 
Should a ditch be dug, pipes laid, and the old well 
brought into the house, or should a new well be 
sunk by our own hearth-stone? The old well 
H^as an unfailing fountain of soft water. The new 

14 



314 SUMMER REST. 

well was in every respect an uncertainty. We 
decided upon the first plan, and thereupon ensued 
the Conflict of Ages. 

O you dwellers in [New Zealand] cities whose 
silver-throated naiads spout endless Croton and 
Cochituate, O happy sons of the mountains, who 
have only to drop a log anywhere, and a brook im- 
mediately leaps through it, there are more things 
'twixt the cup and the lip than are dreamt of in 
your philosophy. 

However beautiful and healthy is country life, 
it is a very serious matter, when you have any 
great undertaking on hand, to be living at a place 
to which the nearest point is twenty miles away. 
However, in the fulness of time a man skilled in 
pumps and pipes was brought over the twenty 
miles to train up our wayward Undine in the 
way she should go. To our dismay, she refused to 
go at all. Water will not run up hill unless by 
strong persuasion, and up hill we indubitably were. 
A spirit-level, improvised from a board and a glass 
of water, in strict accordance with the Maine Liq- 
uor Law, being brought upon the witness-stand, 
deposed and said that in our lowest estate we stood 
upon a level with the second story of the next 
house, and that no water would come for our 
pumping, pump we never so indefatigably. Seeing 
is beheving, but I must confess I was incredulous, 
and to this day I find it hard to persuade myself, 
that every time I go into the garden, I walk out 



WELL DONE. 315 

of my neighbor's chamber-window. However, the 
weight of evidence was against me, and the old 
well was pronounced out of the question. 

Then a new well appeared upon the field with 
a cistern for its opponent. A cistern ? Drink 
rain-water that has been standing in a tub six 
months? By no means. But what hope to find 
water in this gravelly knoll, without boring an 
Artesian well? A meeting was called, to which 
delegates came from a sweep of thirty miles. 
Science said, " You are on the uplands indeed, 
but springs are as likely to be found in them as 
in the lowlands. There are higher hills behind 
you, whence the water may flow down, and be 
no farther from the surface here than elsewhere." 
Experience scowled at Science, and affirmed, "You 
can get your well, but you must dig for it, and 
keep digging, till you get as low as the bottom 
of the other well." Who shall decide when doc- 
tors disagree ? A marvellous man who lives in 
the blessed woods of Wycombe, and has under- 
ground eyes to see springs of water beneath the 
dry land. Thus up spake noble Faith, and as 
soon as our Parliament prorogued we ordered 
what is technically termed " a team," and started 
for the blessed woods of Wycombe, and the man 
with the underground eyes, James Knox Onlis 
by name. Nobody knew the road, except that 
it ran in a general way to the northwest, so we 
set our faces steadilv towards the northwest, till 



316 SUMMER REST. 

we reached the outskirts of the unexplored re- 
gions, where we halted to take an observation. 
" In yonder cabin," spake the patriarch of the 
party, " there once lived a family by the name 
of Onlis. Perhaps our Seer may be a descend- 
ant at the fifth or sixth remove. Suppose we 
inquire." I at once alighted and approached the 
front gate. It had apparently never been opened 
since the lamented decease of the original proprie- 
tor, and was not to be opened now. A side-gate 
was fastened by an ingenious arrangement of sticks 
and strings, so complicated that it seemed easier 
to scale the wall than to attempt to loosen them. 
Gaining thus the freedom of the yard, I trod 
tentatively and cautiously around the house to the 
back-door. It was open, but a chair lying length- 
wise baiTed the entrance, and a very ancient and 
fish-like smell melted on the autumn air. A re- 
spectful rap brought out a pretty young woman 
in a somewhat tattered gown, but with gold beads 
around her neck. " Can you tell me if Mr. James 
Knox Onlis lives here?" No, he did not, — to my 
great relief, — he lived about three miles farther, 
beyond the river. Three miles were cheerily 
passed, the river crossed, and again we tarried in 
pursuit of knowledge. A horseman was watering 
his horse at the running river, — brook perhaps 
it might be called, if one were not ambitious. 
" Can you tell me where Mr. James Knox Onlis 
Hves ? " 



WELL DONE, 317 

" Just about three quarters of a mile from here. 
You must turn to the right, then to the left, then 
go into a lane and up the hill, and you are right 
on it." Following his directions we soon found 
the house. 

" Does Mr. James Knox Onlis live here ? " 

" Yes, he does." 

" Is he at home." 

"No, he isn't." 

" Can you tell me where he is ? " 

" Well, down on the Agawam road. You 
must go back to the main road, then turn and 
go past the ropewalk till you come to a yellow 
house on the left-hand side. He is there." 

" You are quite sure I shall find him there ? " 

" O yes, he is there. He was going to be there 
all day." 

So we plod on, passing the ropewalk, but there 
is no yellow house, and then another ropewalk and 
another half-mile, and the yellow house shines in 
the slanting sunlight. A stalwart, honest-looking 
man is just driving a loaded wagon into the yard. 
I alight and accost him. ''Is Mr. James Knox 
Onlis here ? " 

" Well he has been here, but he went away 
about half an hour ago." 

" Do you knew where he went ? " 

" No, I don't exactly. He did n't know 
whether he should go home or to Agawam." 

Aroused by the voices, two heads appear above 



318 SUMMER REST. 

a high board fence half a dozen yards away. One 
belongs to a young man, and one to an elderly 
one, whereupon the colloquy takes on a fourfold 
character. 

*' Did you ever hear that Mr. James Knox 
Onlis can tell where water is to be found?" A 
suppressed giggle from the young head above the 
fence. 

" Well, he does do that business sometimes, 
when folks want him to." 

" Is he generally successful ? " 
" Well, he most always hits on the square." 
" Is he a good deal engaged just now ? " 
" Well, no, I do' know 's he is partic'l'ly." 
" Would there be any probability of my being 
able to engage his services at once ? " 

" Well, yes, I think like 's not you might." 
" As I did not meet him on the w^ay here, is it 
not probable that he is gone to Agawam ? " 

" He 's gone to Egypt to buy corn," says the 
young head above the fence. 

" And where is Egypt ? " I ask. 
" 'T an't nowhere. There 's no such place," 
says my stalwart friend confidentially in an under- 
tone. " He 's gone to Agawam to get stores. 
That 's where he was going." 

" Perhaps I could find him at some of the 
shops? " 

'' Well, he most generally goes to Knightman's 
or Wheelill's. Likely enough he '11 be in one of 
them very places." 



WELL DONE, 319 

" And we are to keep on this road ? " 

" Yes, this will take you right to Agawam. He 
will be there or on the road somewhere, — unless 
he goes down by Lampboy's to buy some hay; 
though he said, I remember now, that perhaps he 
should come round the other road to see his sister." 

" Can you tell me any way by which I shall 
know him ? " 

" Well, he has a black horse and buggy." 

" And looks just like me," says the elderly 
head over the fence. 

" And has a young man with him," says my 
stalwart friend. 

" With black hair and whiskers," says the elder- 
ly head. 

'' And two firkins and a can in the wagon," 
adds the young head. 

Thus replete with valuable and exact informa- 
tion, we resumed our journey, setting our faces 
towards Agawam, three miles farther on, and 
keeping a sharp lookout 

1. For all black horses and buggies. 

2. For all black hair and whiskers. 

3. For all heads like the elderly head above the 
fence. 

4. For two firkins and a can. 

So we rode and rode and rode through the 
beautiful Indian summer, the warm soft air fall- 
ing and floating around us in a haze of dreamy 
delight, all the roses of June deepening in the 



320 SUMMER REST. 

ruddy woods, all the violets of May purpling in 
the distant hills, Spring pouring her tender promise 
and Summer her perfect splendor into the lap of 
this gorgeous autumn queen, till, betwixt the glory 
of the skies above and the glory of the earth 
beneath, this whole round world became a palace 
of dainty delights. Kind Heaven ! that is ever 
mixing honey with the bitter draught of life, that 
makes the path of our lowliest duties a via sacra 
for our souls. 

So we drove lordlily into Agawam, as beseems 
monarchs of so fair a realm ; and there at the 
door of the first grocery-shop stood the black 
horse and buggy that had hitherto so persistently 
eluded us, and there, too, the cabalistic words 
brought to light the ever approached yet always 
receding James Knox Onlis, whom we had begun 
to regard as some shadowy myth, cloud-born and 
cloud dissolving, but who appeared before our eyes, 
a man of mortal mould, and promised in very 
human fashion to unravel for us the riddles of 
the deep earth betimes the next morning, and in 
very un-human fashion kept his promise. 

Herein is a marvellous thing ; for this man 
affirms that he possesses a power whose nature he 
does not understand, of whose origin he knows 
nothing, over which he exercises no control, whose 
working he only partially comprehends, whose 
existence he but accidentally discovered. The 
assumed facts are, that water flows through the 



WELL DONE. 321 

earth In veins at unequal distances from its surface, 
and when he crosses one of these veins, a Httle 
upward curving rod in his hand Is forced and 
twisted by some occult influence till it bends 
downward. The material of the rod is unimpor- 
tant. Witch-hazel is the best substance, but any 
common wood obeys the hidden law. Our experi- 
menter brought the fragment of an ordinary bar- 
rel-hoop, and began at once to walk around the 
house, clasping it lightly in both hands at each 
end, his palms turned upward. I followed him 
steadfastly to see what was to be seen. He paced 
slowly and watchfully hither and thither, and 
presently the hoop gave an indubitable twist. 
" Here is water." He crossed and recrossed to 
find the general direction of the vein, since, ac- 
cording to his theory, no effect is produced when 
walking along Its course, though he may be di- 
rectly over it. But the w^ater did not flow to 
suit our convenience, and he resumed his search, 
soon discovering another vein which branched off 
from the first, and made directlv for our kitchen 
in the most obliging manner. Here he planted 
his stake and took measurements. His scale not 
being yet perfected, he is unable to give exact 
results, but after sundry manoeuvres with pebbles 
and paper, he pronounced our spring to be from 
twenty to twenty-two feet below the surface. 
This was so favorable a view of the case, that we 
were Inclined to adopt it. 

14* u 



322 SUMMER REST. 

" Eor so to interpose a little ease, 
Let our vain thoughts dally (even) with false surmise." 

Having then made his professional discoveries, 
he made a few more "for fun," and pointed out 
several places where water could be found. So 
that, if we should ever become addicted to well- 
digging, we should know just where to begin, 
and in fact could turn our farm into a sponge on 
very short notice. 

His power, or his passion one might perhaps 
as well say, for he seems to be less acting than 
acted upon, is not confined to water, but extends 
to metal. By it he can discover gold and silver 
money hidden on floor or in field. Unfortunately 
for our experiments at the present time, the gold 
must exist, before he can discover it, which very 
seriously restricts active operations. A half-dollar, 
under one of twenty- sheets of paper laid on the 
carpet this lively little wand points out. Accord- 
ing to his theorizing, lightning always strikes 
above these water-courses, so that a house stand- 
ing between two of them would be safe without 
lightning-rods. He once visited a house where 
a person had been killed by lightning, and after 
making examination he said, " I do not know 
whether he was in the front or back room, but 
he must have been standing somewhere on this 
line," and the bystanders confirmed his decision. 
His discovery of the possession of this faculty was, 
as I have said, accidental, if we may use the 



WELL DONE. 323 

term. A number of persons were discussing tlie 
possibility of this power, which, if it exists, is 
very rarely possessed, and were trying experi- 
ments with the witch-hazel rods. He refused to 
try, believing it to be mere superstition, and 
even declared that he should be ashamed to be 
seen walking around with a stick in that way. 
But several days afterwards, he happened to see 
one of these rods lying on the ground, and, as 
nobody was in sights from mere curiosity he took 
it up and tried the experiment, which, to his 
astonishment was completely successful, showing 
that he possessed the power in very large meas- 
ure. He had been called upon several times 
when persons had dug in vain for wells, and had 
never failed to make their dry lands evolve 
springs of water. Out of twenty wells, whose 
depth he had previously reckoned, he had been 
told the average variation from his measurements 
had been less than one foot. But he acknowl- 
edged frankly, that he did not always estimate so 
accurately. This was his own story. 

We had taken our measures so promptly, after 
having decided upon them, that we had quite 
stolen a march upon our neighbors ; but the thing 
was not long hid under a bushel, and the little 
currents of remark soon began to flow quietly but 
significantly. It was a very nice study in mental 
philosophy to mark them, as they varied from a 
gentle compassion to open ridicule, — open but 



324 SUMMER REST, 

not very violent, even from those who were most 
disposed to use it, for the conclusion of the matter 
was so near at hand, that even those sublimely- 
superior to superstition thought it not wise to 
make any marked demonstration which might by 
chance — of course it could be by chance alone — 
redound to their own discomfiture. 

" You have been consulting a diviner, I under- 
stand," drawls Elegant Leisure, — on whom I now 
wreak revenge. " Do you design to preserve the 
wand of enchantment for future generations to 
venerate as Aaron's rod was laid away for the 
Jews?" 

" Going to have your well stoned, as well as 
dug, by mesmerism," haw-haws practical Common 
Sense, who is to be imposed upon by no old- 
wives' fables. 

" I don't believe in it," says Metaphysics, stout- 
ly, — Metaphysics, who accepts any quantity of 
incomprehensible sesquipedalian theory about the 
mind, and very safely too, since nobody can 
say whether it is true or false, — ''I don't be- 
lieve in it. If it is ever true of any man, he is 
to be pitied. He is an unfortunate man. Send 
him to the Lunatic Asylum, or to the Massachu- 
setts General Hospital- It is disease." 

Convinced that success would be the best refu- 
tation, we held our peace and longed for the ad- 
vent of the well-digger. 

It was Saturday when the " diviner " left us, 



WELL DONE. 825 

and Monday the well was to be begun. But 
Monday came and another Monday, and Monday 
still again, and brought no well-diggers. We were 
not surprised. The only thing that surprises us is 
to have workmen come when they say they will. 
If our experience is at all indicative of the state 
of public morals, there is a lamentable infidelity 
to engagements among manual laborers. They 
do not recognize the sacredness of their word. 
They do not comprehend the nature of a pledge. 
They make it and break it with equal readiness. 
Whether it be to build a house or trim a tree, 
or mend a door, or make a window, or pay a debt, 
or bring a load of wood, or finish a dress, you can- 
not depend upon its being done at the appointed 
time. They will agree to your plans with oblig- 
ing alacrity and carry them out at their own sweet 
will. I do not see in this respect, the smallest 
difference between the church and the world. Six 
years ago a church-member promised to haul us a 
load of coal before Thanksgiving, and it has not 
yet appeared, nor been heard from. Five years 
ago another church-member entered into a similar 
eno;a2i:ement with similar results. Yet both these 
persons still continue to adorn the doctrine of God 
their Saviour by a well-ordered life and conversa- 
tion, so far as ecclesiastical eyes discern. I know 
one unhappy man who belongs to two churches, and 
between them he does not seem to have any moral 
sense left. He cannot wait for temptation, but 



326 SUMMER REST. 

hastens to forswear himself spontaneously. Ap- 
parently his perception is quite bewildered, and he 
sees no distinction between "I go" and ''I go 
not." He might with great propriety adopt the 
Brahminic riddle, which is no riddle to him, — 

" Far or forgot to me is near, 
Sunlight and shadow are the same, 
To me the vanished gods appear. 
And one to me are shame and fame." 

And we sound Evangehcal Christians talk about 
the "merely moral man." Merely moral! As if 
morality were a common thing, to be lightly es- 
timated in the general sum of human character, 
and not rather the solid earth beneath our feet, 
without which the heavens above would be of no 
account to us. Merely moral ! Happy the day 
when the world shall have grown so rich in Chris- 
tian graces that it can afford to leave morality out 
of the reckoning; but the infant born this hour 
will not live to see it. Meanwhile, and to hasten 
its advent, let us preach morality side by side with 
rehgion, and preach it with such clearness and 
fervor, that, if men will sin, they shall sin with 
malice aforethought and their eyes open, and not 
from ignorance and a befogged vision, as they un- 
doubtedly often do now. Pulpit teaching ought 
to lay hold on a man's conscience with so close a 
clutch, with so unyielding a grasp, that he cannot 
escape from them without rending his conscience 
and leaving it all torn and bleeding with an eter- 



WELL DONE. 327 

nal wound, — only let them be the teachings of 
the Gospel, not of prejudice or ignorance. Justi- 
fication, sanctification, election, atonement, — let 
them all be discussed, but especially let their con- 
nection with a man's business character be made 
clear. It is not enough to lay down abstract prop- 
ositions. Men will assent to them promptly, and 
go straightway and violate the law that is in them, 
and disregard the principle that underlies them, 
without even knowing it. The preacher ought to 
make the applications, to bring down the Gospel to 
life, to bring up life to the Gospel ; to show exactly 
what the first demands, and where the second 
fails ; to instruct workingmen and women, as we 
all are, or ought to be, how to make the whole 
week bear fruits to God in our most common 
words and ways. And especially let all clergy- 
men and teachers whatever recognize and teach, 
that truthfulness lies at the bottom of character, 
without which none is utterly pure, with which 
none is utterly corrupt. 

Does this seem to you a digression. Messieurs 
New-Zealanders ? Not in the least. It is a way 
we had in those old times of speaking a word in 
season and out of season ; and as this, moreover, 
is but a brief recapitulation of the thoughts which 
shortened a long walk to the well-digger's, the most 
enlightened of you cannot fail to see that even ar- 
tistically it is quite in the line of my argument. 
Not that I proposed to deliver any such lecture as 



328 SUMMER REST, 

tins to our delinquent gnome. In the first place, 
illness or a misunderstanding might show that 
there was no delinquency. In the second place, 
it is not so easy a matter to tell a man what you 
think about certain things which he may be sup- 
posed to have done or have failed to do. It is 
all very well to put ministers up to doing duty, 
but it is quite another thing to do it yourself. 
Besides, in our fi^ee and beloved country one must 
walk warily if his progress shall be unimpeded. 
However eloquent he waxes in the bosom of his 
family over the right-hand fallings off and left-hand 
defections of his brethren, he will hardly find his ac- 
count in obtruding his eloquence, for his own satis- 
faction, upon those brethren. So, as I walked over 
the hills and far away, I improved each shining 
hour in improvising some inoffensive speech which 
should satisfactorily account for my appearance. 
The crops, the weather, and the fears of future 
rains which should spoil our well by swelling the 
shallow springs, were all dismissed in favor of an 
anxiety lest illness might have prevented the un- 
dertaking. In this defensive armor I presented 
myself at the well-digger's house; but his house 
took no cognizance of his whereabouts, only recom- 
mending the barn as a hopeful place for further 
research. To the barn accordingly I turned, pick- 
ing my way carefully among the great heaps of 
corn not yet stripped of its swaddling-clothes, 
under the withered grape-vines that had borne 



WELL DONE. 329 

their rich burdens bounteously, and were now 
resting from their labors, fragrant still and not 
without a certain crisp loveliness, as the yellow 
sunshine floated softly through them and the ten- 
der breeze . rustled them in cooing melody ; and 
sweetly sung to my charmed ear those rich lines 
of old Andrew Marvell, — 

" What wondrous life is this I lead ! 
Ripe apples drop about my head ; 
The luscious clusters of the vine 
Upon my mouth do crush their wine ; 
The nectarine and curious peach 
Into my hand themselves do reach," — 

past huge piles of wood, rough enough to such as 
should see only their straggling outline, nor know 
the blessings that lay deep hidden in each rugged 
pile, — warmth for chill and rest for weariness, 
fireside talk, the crooning of old stories, the prat- 
tle from child-Hps, the purr of the comfortable cat, 
foam of cider and fragrance of apples, home-com- 
forts, neighborly cheer, and boundless hospitality 
for the wayfarer against the long frost-bound even- 
ings that lay in ambush behind golden sunshine 
and dusky grapes, and could not discern in each 
shapeless mass the beautiful, insidious foe that 
should steal away their sharpness ere they were 
aware, and thrill the heart of December with the 
glow and gladness of June. And still as I trod 
cautiously the hens stared at me and stepped aside, 
not too far. And the gray gander left his harem 
and pursued me valiantly with level neck and fe- 



330 SUMMER REST. 

rocious hiss, and the turkey-gobbler strutted and 
sidled up to me, scraping the ground with the tips 
of his bristling wings, and boasting his prowess 
with most unmusical gobble. Thus attended, I 
came suddenly upon the harvesters. The broad 
barn doors were flung wide open to the flooding 
southern sunshine, and the laborers sat half hidden 
among heaps of stalks and unhusked corn, sturdily 
stripping off* the shrivelled glume with steadfast, 
brawny hands, — all but he whom I sought. In- 
quiring for him, I was directed aloft ; and there, 
half-way up the high ladder, well on towards the 
great beam, was the hale old man, bearing his 
eight and seventy years as blithely as a boy his 
dozen summers. My questions died on my lips 
in mute surprise. You cannot anxiously inquire 
after a man's health when he is frisking like a 
squirrel before your eyes, so I changed my tac- 
tics on the instant, and only made some com- 
monplace salutation to attract his attention, sup- 
posing naturally enough that he would descend on 
seeing me to a convenient table-land for conver- 
sation, and so give me time to collect my resources. 
But he had no notion of permitting the serious 
business of life to be interrupted by a little whip- 
per-snapper like me ; he just glanced back over his 
shoulder, w^ent on up his ladder, and scrambled 
over upon the scaffold as unconcernedly as if but 
a little brown mouse had startled out of the corn, 
and the men from their mounds below began to 



WELL DONE, 331 

pitch up great forkfuls of stalks which the old 
man caught and arranged deftly, and all the while 
we talked the dust of the lively corn-husks came 
floating down into my eyes and face upturned at 
an angle of about eighty degrees to the dimly out- 
lined figure upon the scaffold. But as soon as the 
gander ceased to hiss, and the turkey gave over 
gobbling, I managed to insinuate a question about 
the future prospects of the well. " You do' want 
no well at present," spoke the handsome, black- 
eyed son from his cereal pile, and extinguished me 
at once. I had thought all the time that we did 
want a well very much. In fact, it was solely 
owing to this mental hallucination that I had 
taken my walks abroad that very morning. But 
the old man above benevolently came to the res- 
cue wdth an assurance that the well should be 
dug all in good time, but his hired man had been 
sick three weeks, and his work was all behind- 
hand. You could dig wells when you could 
not get in grain, and of course he must har- 
vest his crops. But, I said, I feared the rains 
would come so heavily as to fill the springs and 
our well would fail in the dry season. 

" O, don't you worry," he sang out cheerily, 
never pausing in his work, " I know all about it. 
I 've dug more wells than any man in the county. 
A shallow spring might rise, but deep wells like 
yours won't be touched this month. By the time 
we get down three feet you '11 see. Did n't you 
ever make dough for your chickens?" 



332 SUMMER REST. 

"Yes, indeed," brightening up with pleasure at 
touching on famihar ground. 

" Well, you know how the meal drinks up 
the water. Now the earth is an ash-heap, and 
swallows up the rain just like Indian meal. That 
last storm we had did n't wet down an inch in my 
field." 

It would have been a very remarkable rain if 
it had. Farmers will often allow that a timely 
shower has freshened the grass, but in the whole 
course of a long and eventful life, I do not think 
I ever heard a farmer in a dry time admit that 
any rain, however profuse and protracted, had wet 
down to his potatoes ! So cavah'erly do we receive 
the good gifts of the Good Giver. 

Then I told him that I had met his son on the 
way, who had begged me to ask him to make a 
new pump for a wayside well, that had been long 
disused, but was now needed in the general 
drought ; but I added, with miserable selfishness, 
I hoped he would dig our well first, we had been 
waiting so long. 

" O, I know that pump, I made it myself It 
was the first one I ever made. I sha'n't hurry. 
They 've done without twenty years, I guess they 
can wait a spell longer. I sha'n't meddle with it till 
I 've dug vour well. Mv folks don't want me to 
dig wells. That 's what the talk about the pump 's 
for." It could hardly be wondered at that his 
"folks" should desire him not to engage in this 



WELL DONE. 333 

hard and hazardous work, but it was plain to see 
that he had no design of gratifying them. His eye 
was not dim, nor his natural strength abated. Life 
and health and heart were stout within him, and 
he scorned to give up his firm foothold on the ac- 
tive world. Wise man ! Work is the sole pre- 
servative. I came away reassued, though it is hard 
to say on precisely what grounds, for the most 
definite report I could take home amounted to no 
more than that he would come when he got ready, 
which we suspected before. 

But come they did, man and horse, pick and 
pulley, shovel and scoop, — how wonderful it is, the 
time and trouble and tools, the science and skill it 
takes to do things. Certainly a well is nothing 
remarkable, yet you must know how, or you can 
no more make a well than you can make a world. 
But these people knew how. They just drew a 
circle on the greensward, and cut out a deep 
round hole as clean and regular as the hole in a 
doughnut before it is cooked ; no jagging into the 
turf, no scattering about of stones and soil, but 
a round hole constantly deepening, a pyramidal 
mound constantly rising. Merrily, merrily went 
they down, burrowing in the earth like so many 
moles, and came up all smeared with sand and 
loam, kobolds, goblins, with a human trick of the 
voice, and many an underground jest; down and 
down thirteen feet the first day, and then they 
struck the hard clay and made only three feet the 



334 SUMMER REST. 

second day, and three feet more, and still three 
more, — twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two; and, O 
heavens ! there was no water ! and slowly, slowly, 
with pick-axe and platform, down, down — - 

Twenty-three feet, twenty-four .feet, twenty-five 
feet, still dry land. O Science, O Philosophy, O 
Mystery, where were ye, nymphs? 

Twenty-six feet, — O that w^e had not been so 
strenuous for a deep well, but could have con- 
tented ourselves with a shallow one ! 

Twenty-seven feet, — to think how fearful we 
had been lest autumn rains should swell surface 
streams to fallacious size, and now my kingdom 
for the shallowest stream ! 

Twenty-eight feet, — and a thread of water 
comes trickling tardily in six feet behind time, a 
little better than nothing, from the predicted quar- 
ter, true ; but anybody would know if it ran at all 
it would run down hill. 

Twenty-nine feet, and the merry rills come 
dancing in from all sides in a frolic of freedom. 

Thirty feet, and there is a basin of water, yel- 
low, thick and clayey, but soft and promising to be 
plenteous, and we will go no farther. 

O, but then did not the wiseacres glorify them- 
selves over us poor slaves of superstition, dupes 
of a wily adventurer? Now where is your di- 
viner, where your magnetism and your electri- 
city ? Water is there truly, but water is every- 
where if one but digs deep enough. Might know 



WELL DONE. 335 

there was nothing in it ! Absurd to suppose a 
man could tell what there was ten feet under 
him through the solid earth ! 

I have thought much lately about Friar Bacon, — 
the light that shone out of the darkness six hun- 
dred years ago, and could not dissipate it because 
its time was not yet come ; the great sad soul that 
wrought in speechless solitude, wooing Nature in 
her fastnesses, studying the secrets of the mind, 
and trying to fling somewhat of the brightness of 
his mountain heights down upon the glooming 
valleys below, — and himself flung into prison for 
his pains. O, I hope that somewhere, somewhere 
in some pleasant, strange, curious world. Friar 
Bacon is still studying with all heavenly helps 
the mysteries of the universe, and that love and 
friendship, and every tender, human solace, and 
every Divine benignity, make amends a thousand- 
fold for that short, cold, and bitter-sweet earth- 
dream of his ! But the spirit that imprisoned 
Roger Bacon is still abroad upon the earth. It 
came down our way last fall, toothless and fang- 
less now, thank Heaven ! but grinning horribly 
with its old hate, and showing what it would do, 
had not time destroyed its power to hurt. Yet 
it oup-ht to be dead. There was an excuse for 
the men who imprisoned Roger Bacon. How 
should they know that the sulphurous and so- 
norous gunpowder was not set on fire of hell ? 
Living a life of the senses, and that in its grossest 



336 SUMMER REST. 

forms, how should they believe in unseen, unheard, 
impalpable material forces ? But Friar Bacon has 
lived, and labored, and died. The earth has been 
weighed, the moon measured, the clouds plun- 
dered, the sea spanned, the depths uncovered. 
Hidden powers have been tracked to their lairs 
and forced into human service. We have gone 
but a little way into the kingdom of our inher- 
itance ; we have, as it were, but crossed the 
threshold of our palace, and every step has 
showed it to be a treasure-house of mysteries ; 
yet now we are to recoil with contempt from 
one mystery the more! Believing so much as 
we do of physical science, how passing strange 
it is that the trained reason of any man can 
reject without examination, and ridicule without 
misgiving, anything which claims to belong to 
its domain ! What is the element of absurdity 
in this water attraction that does not equally 
inhere in electricity or magnetism? Who that 
believes in the American Telegraph or the Mar- 
iner's Compass can afford to scoft' at the hazel- 
rod? We have seen, or might have seen, that the 
greatest and most beneficent discoveries and in- 
ventions have had an apparently puerile origin. 
A falling apple, a steaming tea-kettle, a dead frog, 
a child's kite, have not done so little of our drudg- 
ery for us, and^so little added to our sum of knowl- 
edge, that we can safely despise even a barrel hoop. 
Contempt, contumely, violent opposition, have been 



WELL DONE. 337 

the foster-mothers of some of the most useful arts 
that now bless the human race, and it would seem 
to be the part of a wise man to wait before pro- 
nouncing adverse judgment. I am speaking now, 
not at all of evidence, but of intrinsic probabil- 
ity; and I affirm that, apart from any evidence, 
there is no more absurdity or improbability in 
Bletonism than in Magnetism or' Galvanism. 

But though the theory is so strong that we can 
discard the evidence, on the other hand the evi- 
dence is so strong that we can dismiss the theory. 
When our world pointed its slowly moving finger 
of scorn at us, we bore it awhile patiently, and then 
bestirred ourselves to make defence. We found 
that the matter was one of sufficient scientific 
research to have received a name. Bletonism 
stands in Webster in equal honor with the other 
isms. That is surely a fair introduction to good 
society. Admitting that our own experiment was 
a comparative failure, — an entire failure in re- 
spect of the distance computed and not a certain 
success in respect of finding water, — knowing, 
too, how untrustworthy are mere stories and re- 
ports, we determined to ascertain for ourselves 
whether there was any tangible proof, anything 
that could be relied on, in making up an opinion. 
We ascertained names and places, and cross- 
examined the witnesses. One intelligent farmer, 
who had spent his life under our own eyes, that is, 
not more than six miles away, told us how he had 
15 V 



838 SUMMER REST. 

begun to dig a well, and after two fruitless trials 
a friend came by and said to him, ''I would not 
dig at random in this way. Go to Mr. Onlis, 
and let him tell you where you can get some- 
thing besides your labor for your pains." Where- 
upon he proceeded at once to Mr. Onhs, who 
said, "I do not wish to go. I have just had 
two failures. I would rather not go." 

" Never mind," said the believing farmer, " but 
jump right into the wagon and go with me." 

So they went together, and the little rod pointed 
to a spring just nine feet under ground, which, 
when they had dug nine feet, they found bub- 
bling up to meet them. The farmer then called 
upon Mr. Onlis to point out a spring for a well for 
one of the farm laborers, which he did with equal 
accuracy, and subsequently another for the barn. 
In the latter case a very slight excavation showed 
the site of an old well whose existence was remem- 
bered, but whose location had been forgotten. A 
few repairs brought it out as good as new, thanks 
to the little Puck of a wand. 

A second man gave in his experience also for 
our edification. He dug down in a certain spot, 
according to directions, and came upon a ledge. 
The laborers blasted till they were tired, and 
were upon the point of giving it up ; but, as they 
had gone nearly to the depth indicated, they de- 
termined to make a complete trial. Their perse- 
verance was rewarded by their finding an unfail- 
ing supply of water in the solid rock. 



WELL DONE. 339 

A third testified that he had taken Mr. Onhs 
upon a solid ledge to a distance of about ten feet 
from the precipitous front of the cliff, and asked 
him for water. He found it, after a short search, 
a dozen feet perhaps below the surface. 

'' Do you mean to tell me that there is a spring 
of water in this ledge of rock ? " 

''I think there is." 

He then took him around to the front of the 
cliff, where, at about the designated spot, a little 
trickle of water could be seen oozing from the 
rock. 

"I have noticed that there is always water 
weeping there through drought and summer," 
said the gentleman, " and have thought whether 
it might not be made available." 

'' Undoubtedly it could," was the reply ; a 
process of drilling was at once commenced, and 
a spring of water found there which has never 
failed, though several years have since intervened. 

Another witness told of an exhibition of the 
power in a public hall, in the presence and under 
the scrutinizing gaze of a hundred people, mem- 
bers of a scientific association. The president of 
the association was an avowed disbeliever, yet the 
rod turned unerringly when brought over a piece 
of gold, and with such force as to take the skin 
from the palm of his hand. 

Another man had dug two wells only a rod or 
two apart, and to the depth of forty feet, but found 



340 SUMMER REST. 

the water so insufficient that he filled them both 
up. Some time after his death his son heard 
of Mr. Onlis, and engaged his services. The rod 
indicated a vein about midway between the two 
old wells. On digging there, an abundant supply 
of water was found at somewhat less than half the 
depth of the other wells. 

In the Report of the Commissioner of Patents 
for the Year 1851, Part II., is a statement made 
by Alfred Burnson, of Prairie du Chien, Wis- 
consin, over his own signature. He says : "In 
1812 I settled on a springless farm in Ohio, ex- 
pecting to obtain water by digging a well. A neigh- 
bor of mine, who had on an adjoining farm ob- 
tained good water only fourteen feet from the sur- 
face of the ground, by means of this Bletonism, 
urged me to try the same means. But, being of the 
class who could not, or rather would not, believe in 
what I could not comprehend, I declined resort- 
ing to w^hat to me, as to others, appeared to be 
consummate nonsense, and I spent my leisure time 
in the dry time of three years in digging, but fgund 
no w^ater. At length, despairing of finding water 
in this way, and having, the curiosity to test this 
new science, I invited a ' water philosopher ' to 
try his skill for me. It is proper to observe, that 
this man was an independent farmer, a man of 
intelligence and high moral worth, and, as he per- 
formed in this matter without fee or reward, I had 
no possible ground for suspecting any design of 



WELL DONE. 341 

humbuggery on his part. And further, he told 
me that he knew no more of the reason, the why 
or wherefore it worked m his hands, while it 
would not in those of others, than I did. By 
mere accident he ascertained that he was ' one of 
'em ' ; and on discovering this he experimented 
until he discovered the fact — that the rod would 
be attracted at an angle of 45°, and that from the 
point at which the attraction commenced to where 
the attraction was perpendicular, would indicate 
the depth to dig to reach the water. 

"All this, however, — his high character and 
his explanations, — did not remove my doubts. 
He prepared his peach-twig fork, and I placed him 
over a well which I had dug, and was at this time 
full of surface or seep water ; wishing, if possible, 
not to lose the labor thus expended. But this 
seep-water had no effect whatever on the rod. 
The operator then travelled slowly, I keeping my 
eye upon the rod and his hands, to see if the turn- 
ing of the rod was not from the motion of his own 
hands. At length the butt or fork-end of the rod 
went down ; the operator holding his hands upon 
the rod so tightly, to prevent its slipping, that they 
turned purple, and I could plainly see that the 
twig ends of the rod did not slip or turn round in 
his hand, but that the twigs actually twisted so that 
the bark broke and gave way. When I saw this I 
gave it up. What I saw with my own eyes, and 
that, too, against strong prejudice, I could not 



342 SUMMER REST. 

doubt. He selected the point where the dip of 
the rod was the strongest, and measured the depth 
by the 45° rule, and I stuck the stake to dig 
by ; and in the ensuing autumn, when all was 
dry, I dug, and found the depth, quantity, and 
quality of the water just as he had told me." 

It is natural and to be expected that the uncul- 
tivated mind should reject or neglect evidence at 
its own will, and satisfy itself with calling names ; 
but it is difficult to perceive how the intellect, 
trained to distinguish between truth and falsehood, 
between reason and prejudice, between probability 
and absurdity, between science and charlatanry, 
can reject without evidence or after evidence, 
statements so interesting and so well supported as 
these. The philosophy of the thing is a question 
of opinion or conjecture. Its existence is a matter 
of fact, as well fortified by testimony as any of 
the miracles recorded in the Bible. That is per- 
haps an unhappy remark, as those who seem to 
think themselves the divinely-appointed sponsors 
of the sacred teachings will at once be up in arms 
to defend them from fancied danger, and those 
who reject the sacred teachings altogether will 
think it a weakening rather than a strengthening 
of the case. For the latter, it is neither the one 
nor the other ; it simply leaves the thing where it 
was before, but I should like to have the former 
adduce any evidence in support of Christ's mira- 
cles different in nature or stronger in degree than 



WELL DONE, 343 

this. This does not either tend to explain away the 
miracles into common occurrences or to cheapen 
them by a new dispensation of miracles. Even 
though ultimately Christ's miracles should be 
shown to be the using of simply natural forces, 
still his use of them was as miraculous as if he had 
contravened nature. To have known perfectly 
and have commanded supremely what eighteen or 
eighteen hundred centuries would but obscurely 
discern and partially control, was as godlike an 
attribute, was a more godlike attribute, than to 
wrest a law from its normal working and force it 
to oppose itself. Our modern " diviner," as he is 
most improperly called, makes no such pretensions. 
He says frankly, '' I do not know. I can make 
no promises." He arrives at what knowledge he 
possesses only as a private in the great army of 
progress. The names of " magic," " witchcraft," 
''divining," are entirely out of place and mischiev- 
ous. They prejudice the common mind against 
what promises to be a useful discovery. There is 
no assumption of mystery or anything of the na- 
ture of incantation. And the educated man who 
countenances any such belief misuses his educa- 
tion. If he cannot or does not choose to investi- 
gate the subject, let him hold his peace. 

It is objected that though a man may designate 
a spot and water may be found there, yet to infer 
that the man knew anything about it is to jump to 
a conclusion. Very true, but it is such jumps as 



344 SUMMER REST. 

we are taking every day. A ruffian strikes you 
a blow with a club and you fall to tbe ground, and 
judge and jury jump to the conclusion that the 
fall is in consequence of the blow. A very evil 
case should we be in if they did not. A certain 
regularity in the succession of events is allowed 
by the most enlightened science to constitute 
cause and effect. You plunge your burnt finger 
into cold water and the pain ceases ; you justly 
infer that the water effected the easement. The 
only question is as to the character and the num- 
ber of the cases required to establish the relation- 
ship of cause and effect. If the hazel -rod points 
to water only on land where springs abound, and 
wells can be easily filled, or if only now and then 
it points to water, its claims could be reasonably 
disputed; for in the one case it could only by 
chance fail, and in the other it might by chance 
succeed : but if it invariably points to water, and 
as well on land that has been repeatedly pierced 
in vain as on fresh fields, we must jump to the 
conclusion that there is an understanding between 
the rod and the water, or we must relinquish all 
claims to reason and write ourselves down as mem- 
bers of that class of beings which mistake stubborn- 
ness for sense ! 

It is said, also, that if these persons had true faith 
in their alleged power they would avail themselves 
of it as they do not now. They would go into the 
oil districts and the mining districts and make their 



WELL DONE. 345 

fortunes. I suppose, then, men always do what it 
is for their interest to do. Industry, honesty, so- 
briety, tend to happiness and weaUh ; therefore of 
any particular man who beheves this it may be 
predicated that he is industrious, honest, and sober. 
He who knows that the wages of sin is death, 
scrupulously keeps himself in the paths of right- 
eousness. On the contrary, idleness, trickery, and 
drunkenness abound even in the most enlightened 
sections, and many a man works hard with open 
eyes to earn his wages from his father, the Devil. 
It is not safe to depend on what men would nat- 
urally be supposed to do. But apart from this, 
if one may judge from the incredulity which pre- 
vails in his own neighborhood, a Bletonist would 
have little encouragement to leave his certain oc- 
cupation, his quiet, and his family, to encounter 
the unbelief and ridicule of strangers, and the 
roughness of a new and but half-civilized life. His 
habits do not sit so loosely on a man of middle age 
and New England life that he can lightly change 
them. Moreover, the whole matter is as yet too 
little understood and valued to inspire great con- 
fidence. The scale of measurements is far from 
being perfected, and though the depths of the 
water is but a collateral matter, entirely distinct 
from its locality, and depending more on a man's 
judgment and skill, and therefore of minor import 
as affecting the physical discovery, yet it is of 
great importance in a practical point of view. 

15* 



346 SUMMER REST. 

But while the power itself is so little compre- 
hended that the conditions of its existence, or those 
upon which it may be acquired, retained, or con- 
trolled, are absolutely unknown, no man of con- 
servative years or character can be expected to 
stake his fortunes on it. " If I should advertise," 
said Mr. Onlis, " and set up an office, and then 
should fail, it would be a serious matter. But now 
Jf people want me they must run their own risk." 
Electricity is the most probable agent that has yet 
been advanced to account for the phenomena. A 
silk handkerchief on the ground prevents the dip 
of the rod. Indeed, Mr. Burnson says that a great 
variety of experiments shows that all the phenom- 
ena of the rod are governed by the laws of electri- 
city. When men of science have completed their 
investigations of the subject, have discovered its 
connections, and established its domains, we may 
hope that it will be fruitfal of benefit in ways of 
which as yet we have not dreamed. 

Meanwhile I submit that to believe that a man 
accounted honest, and certainly respected, comfort- 
ably placed, and dwelling among his own people, 
should falsely declare or vainly believe himself 
possessed of a power, the proof of whose existence 
is within any man's reach, and should be upheld in 
this declaration and confirmed in this belief by men 
of judgment, intellect, and high moral worth who 
had tested his power and declared themselves sat- 
isfied of its existence to the full intent and extent 



WELL DONE, 347 

of his declaration, — to believe this, I say, requires, 
in my judgment, a creduhty as far removed from 
inteUigent caution on the one side as it is from an 
intelhgent boldness on the other. 

While we have thus been turning the defeat of 
our foes into a shameful rout, the well has been 
sw^allowing stone wall by the cart-load, and now 
the kobolds near the surface ; they are tunnelHng 
through into the cellar, prying out its big rocks 
and powdering its hardened cement, and I think 
of Colonel Streight and the Andersonville moles, 
and wonder if the Chicago tunnel under the lake 
is a work of perceptibly greater magnitude than 
these water- w^orks of ours ; for faith fails me to 
see how they are ever going to bring order out 
of this chaos or get that hole in the wall filled 
up, and even while I muse, forlorn, a hollow log 
is shot into the hole, and anon all tf\e wreck 
clears itself away and the cellar is in apple-pie 
order once more, and the well takes another gulp 
of stone wall, till at length its rapacious maw is 
lined to the lips with rock. How finely they are 
fitted in, these jagged fragments ! How" round 
and regular the rough work looks ! How beauti- 
ful it is to know how to do things w^ell, and to do 
them well, and to take pride in doing them well. 
Why do not mechanics and all workmen set them- 
selves to be skilled workmen, and not rich men? 
How much better is sincere work, than a little 
money, or a great deal of money, gained by sleight 



348 SUMMER REST. 

of hand. And now, pugnis et calcibus^ to speak 
after the manner of Webster's spelhng-book, down 
goes a boy into the well, to clear it of all rubbish, 
— very speedily and bravely it seems to me, 
watching him with beating heart, but the old man, 
following him with his eyes,* frets at his slowness 
and caution, and but for a wholesome fear of his 
"folks," would, I am persuaded, cast aside his 
seventy years, and go down into Tartarus him- 
self, — and then all is pronounced complete, the 
well is covered up, the ropes and picks and shovels 
and buckets are piled into the cart, the old man sits 
down on a board, and with his own unaided eyes 
and hands makes out his bill as properly as any 
clerk. Then westward ho ! a dozen miles we go 
to prowl among pipes and pumps, and come home 
laden therewith, — pipes not of lead, for they 
poison you, not gutta-percha, for they crack, but 
galvanized iron, possessed of every virtue under 
heaven. And already imagination fondly stoops 
to trace the pictured splendors of water in the 
house, when of a sudden we are brought to a 
stand-still. The hollow log through which the 
pipe must pass is not placed on a level, but slopes 
upwards, and the pipe-joints screw only at right 
angles. So another three days delay, and another 
dozen miles journey to get the joints retwisted, 
w^hile we feed our faith by calling up the mani- 
fold difficulties that beset the great Atlantic Cable, 
and a miserable man, feeling feebly around for 



WELL DONE. 349 

bugbears, as if they do not come full swiftly 
enough of their own accord, asks querulously, 
'' Suppose when the pump is set up it won't 
pump ? Why should it, if this well is as deep as 
the old one ? " and for all answer gets the idio- 
matic, highly figurative but emphatic response, 
" Hold your tongue ! It will pump ! " But 
clandestinely I consult the philosophies, which 
say comfortably that pumps will pump at from 
thirty-two to thirty-four feet, and this water is 
only twenty-eight feet underground, and of course 
it will pump. Here come the pipes again, up 
through the floor, down through the log, plump 
into the w^ell, and every screw is screwed tight, 
and every crack stopped with pretty pink liquid 
lead, and the carpenter comes and builds a box 
for protection, and rounds the top into elegant 
curves, and fastens the pump firm upon it, and we 
are ready for the inauguration. 

I make the first trial, — by favor, — expecting 
a great parabola of water, wdth a single touch. 
There is a silent expectancy in the bystanders. 
I lift the pump-handle once, tw^ice, thrice by 
main force and bear it down ; then ignominiously 
give way for the carpenter's strong arms. Up 
and down, up and down, swiftly at first, more 
slowly at last, he plies a melancholy see-saw. 
There is no response. One and another change 
guard. Water, w^ater, everywhere, but not a drop 
from our pump. Round we throw our baleful eyes, 



350 SUMMER REST. 

that witness huge affliction and dismay, mixed with 
obdurate pride. '' Let 's wet his whistle for him," 
says some one, and pours a pitcherful of w^ater 
down the iron throat. See-saw again, for an in- 
definite period, till the sun comes out in a little 
faint stream, straggling from the pump-nose, evi- 
dently having lost its way, — not a parabola, bold, 
full, and furious, but a little split vein that falls 
flat into the sink, exhausted. Still we hail it 
as the harbinger of better days. '' That 's it, 
that 's all the trouble," says the carpenter. " The 
leather is dry, and the pump leaks ; keep using it 
from day to day, and keep the leather wet till it 
swells, and it will work. There 's most always 
trouble with new pumps," with which solace the 
foreign population withdraw, leaving us to our 
fate. 

So we treated the pump hydropathically, giving 
it a great deal more water than it ever gave us, 
pouring it down plenteously and pumping it up 
painfiiUy; and every time we stopped pumping, 
we could hear the water scudding back into the 
well, but never, no never could we hear it scud- 
ding up. We were indeed a little worse off than 
before ; since formerly we had been obliged to 
bring water only for our own use, while now we 
had to quench the thirst of this parched pump. 
It was robbing Peter to pay Paul at a fearful 
outlay to the robber. " We shall have to buy a 
horse and build a treadmill if this is going to 



WELL DONE. 351 

last long," said a person who is not fond of man- 
ual labor; but it did not last long. One fine 
morning all pitcher persuasions proved useless. 
The poor pump wheezed and groaned and squeaked 
and moaned. I heard the noise, but could not 
decide what it was, and called out from the head 
of the kitchen stairs, " How does the pump work 
this morning ? " 

u W'orks like a Trojan," and so indeed it did, 
but in vain. Halicarnassus said he would examine 
tlie pipes. He went down cellar with a candle, 
and then down the well, and was gone so long 
that I forgot all about him. Presently he came 
in and threw himself on the lounge. Then I 
recollected, and asked eagerly, " What have you 
done with the well ? " 

" O, I left it there, — out doors," he replied, 
indifferently, as if I had supposed he might have 
put it in his pocket, — but no water followed his 
explorations. 

In the midst of our perplexities came a new 
and startling development. The mountain of 
earth that had been dug out of the well was to 
be sold to the town surveyor at six cents a load, 
for mending the highways, — which seemed to me 
so good a bargain, that I advised Halicarnassus 
to have the whole farm dug up and carted off at 
that price, as the most profitable mode of farming 
we could adopt. There was delay, of course, in 
removing the pile, and presently the frosts fast- 



852 SUMMER REST. 

ened their fangs in it, and it became a fixture till 
spring. After a while, a man who was examining 
the well in pursuit of knowledge, ascertained that 
it was filling up. The rains had slyly washed the 
soil back again. It was already five feet deep in 
the bottom of the well, and at this rate it would 
not be long before we should have to dig it all 
over again. How the little underground imps 
must have clapped their hands in malicious de- 
light, at the practical joke they were playing on 
us ! But worse still, the rains in one spot had 
washed away the background from the rocks, 
and left a hole which every rain enlarged. An- 
other rain-storm might be fatal. In short, the well 
threatened to cave in. It might as well have 
been in as out for all the good it did, besides it was 
absurd to think of mending a well before it was 
fairly made ; nevertheless, for the name of it, we 
concluded to heal the breach. Speedy measures 
were urgently enjoined. It was Saturday night, 
and a rain-storm imminent. I suggested stuffing 
the hole with cotton wool and rags over Sunday, 
and was looked at for my pains. Perhaps the 
plan was hardly feasible, as the hole, on examina- 
tion, turned out to be large enough for a man to 
hide in. No, we must go at once, and bring 
laborers to fill in stones and pack clay, — even to 
work on Sunday, rather than encounter another 
rain. There are two livery stables in town own- 
ing a horse apiece ; messengers were despatched 



WELL DONE. 353 

to both to make sure of a conveyance, but though 
the clouds lowered, and the drops pattered, no 
man's conscience was tampered with by any in- 
ducement to work on Sunday. It turned out just 
as well, for the clouds thought better of it, and 
after giving us a sad fright and a few " love pats," 
floated aw^ay and left us a bright Sunday and 
Monday ; and the well, after a little wise correc- 
tion, relinquished its purpose of caving in, and 
surrendered at discretion. 

Go here we are. If it were a mere matter of 
human mechanics, something might be done ; but 
how contend with the great wild atmosphere fifty 
miles above our heads, and the solid earth be- 
neath? The stars in their courses fought, against 
Sisera ; and Sisera was conquered. 

" Who shall contend with his lords 

Or cross them or do them wrong ? 
Who shall bind them as with cords ? 

Who shall tame them as with song 1 
Who shall smite them as with swords ? 
For the hands of their kingdom are strong." 

In calmer moments, in some soft twilight hour, 
we conjecture that possibly our little lodge chances 
to be perched on a water-shed, and that is the 
reason all the streams run away from us. We 
recount the history of the old world, the irrigation 
of the East, the wondrous masonry of the Eoman 
aqueduct, and resolve that the remains are no re- 
mains, but mark the spot where the builders gave 
up their work in despair, and we know how to 



354 SUMMER REST, 

sympathize with them. I read to my friend one 
morning the vainglorious boast of the Cincinnati 
people over their monster pump, which they declare 
to be the largest pump in the world, for it draws a 
stream five feet in diameter from the river. 

" We can match it," he responded ; " we have 
got the smallest pump in the world, for it draws 
just no stream at all ! " 

We are gradually recovering from the stupor of 
exhaustion consequent upon our prolonged and in- 
cessant efforts. When we have nothing else to 
do, we take a turn at the pump, rather, however, 
from force of habit than hope. There have been 
even faint attempts at wit. Halicarnassus be- 
guiles the tedium of pumping by calling it prac- 
tical high-draw-lics. 1 suggested mechanical aid 
one morning, a steam-pump or a force-pump. But 
no, said he, we will let well enough alone. Once 
he aroused himself from a long and brown study 
sufficiently to remark, in a dreamy sing-song, 
" They say, ' all 's well that ends well.' Would n't 
all be better if it begun well and ended water ? " 
Or perhaps he exclaims, his eyes heavy with un- 
shed tears, " We love not wisely but two wells." 
I smile, not having the heart to refuse him such 
cold comfort as may be found in bad puns, and 
just as we are beginning to be a little reconciled 
and settle down into our former ways, Mr. Ole- 
fogee is sure to call and say, " Better have a witch 
come and see what 's the matter in the pump," and 
the old wounds bleed afresh. 



WELL DONE. 355 

There is one comfort, however, in the general 
wreck. The pump and the log and the well are 
of small use, it must be admitted ; but the top of 
the pump-box makes a very handy shelf. 

'^ Yes," says Halicarnassus, " but rather expen- 
sive. Tell me now, you who are accustomed to 
fine distinctions, on the principle that ' 't were 
well done if 't were done quickly,' shall we con- 
sider our well done, or is it ourselves that are 
done?" 

I have never disquieted myself to answer that 
question, nor shall I carry this record further. If 
subsequently Genius came to the rescue, and gave 
us a happy deliverance from all our troubles, why 
recount the tale ? It is not victory, but struggle, 
that makes the happiness of noble hearts. And 
not the victory, but the struggle, shall have a 
history. 

Friendly reader, if by this time any such is left 
me, have I with a winning word or two at the out- 
set of my book, lured you into rough and unex- 
pected-paths? Mea culpa! Do you remember the 
story of the Queen, who had once been a cat, — 
how, sitting in state, she forgot herself, and popped 
under the table in pursuit of a mouse, to the con- 
sternation of her lords and ladies? De mefahula! 
Learn hence, my dear young reader, to be on 
your guard against the first symptoms of polemics, 
lest your whole life become saturated with it, and 



356 WELL DONE. 

when you would fain utter only the pearls and 
diamonds of peace, frogs and toads of controversy 
leap forth unawares ; lest even the melody of birds 
have a twang of Sternhold and Hopkins, and in 
the midst of bloom and beauty that which should 

'' Turn out a song, 
Percliance turn out a sermon." 




Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 



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